GM and UAW Silent as Deadline Nears

As General Motors Corp. and United Auto Workers union negotiators kept silent Thursday about progress toward a new contract, some workers sounded anxious.

The three-year national labor agreement, which covers 300,000 workers, expires at midnight today. The two sides must reach an agreement by the deadline, extend the current contract or the union can call a strike.

“Everybody is curious,” said Dave Perdue, president of UAW Local 276 at GM’s Arlington, Tex., assembly plant. “They’re hungry for information.

“The lack of information, the lack of strike rhetoric--that tells me I should anticipate a settlement,” he said.

In a recorded message Thursday for UAW members, union Vice President Stephen Yokich said work remains for negotiators who began working on the new contract in late July.

“The deadline is quickly approaching, and we must see more movement by the corporation if we are to reach tentative agreement prior to the deadline,” he said. “I urge you to stay in close touch with your local officers about our plans as we approach midnight on Friday.”

Yokich said most of the bargaining time this week was spent on job security and economic issues.

UAW and company officials said only that bargaining continued. Job security, wages, pension and health-care benefits were the major issues still on the bargaining table.

One UAW official said Thursday that negotiators reached tentative agreements on a variety of mostly non-economic issues, including attendance policy, health and safety and compensation for UAW members called up for active duty in the military reserves.

The UAW called a meeting of its GM bargaining council Monday in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, for local presidents and bargaining committee heads. That announcement prompted speculation that negotiators are closer to a settlement than a strike.

Union contracts with GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., which cover more than 450,000 active workers, expire at the same time. The UAW has decided to focus its efforts for now on GM. Talks with the other two companies are on hold.

The union plans to make a contract ratified by GM workers a pattern for agreements with Ford and Chrysler.

GM said Thursday that it had agreed with the International Union of Electronic Workers to extend its contract past today’s midnight deadline. Either side can cancel the extension with three days notice.

The IUE represents about 24,000 workers at GM component plants in Ohio, New York, New Jersey and Mississippi.