Auto Workers, GM Remain at the Bargaining Table

The United Auto Workers and General Motors continued to bargain Saturday toward a new contract covering 300,000 active workers in 33 states, after setting aside a strike deadline that passed at midnight Friday.

The pact would cover 3,500 Californians, including 3,200 in Van Nuys.

Negotiators were hoping to reach an agreement before a scheduled meeting Monday of the union’s 300-member GM bargaining council, called to vote on any new pact. Workers were told to report to work as usual “until further notice.” Only one plant, in Bowling Green, Ky., had been slated to operate this weekend.

Although Canadian Auto Workers struck Ford of Canada at midnight Friday, bargaining continued Saturday and no work was halted because none of Ford’s Canadian plants had scheduled weekend operations.

Ford says a Canadian strike would begin crippling up to eight U.S. assembly plants within a week. Ford of Canada is the sole source of engines for the Lincoln Continental and base engine for the Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar, for example. It also makes all of the windshields for Ford’s F-series pickup truck, the nation’s biggest selling vehicle.

Affected would be plants in Atlanta; Chicago; Detroit; St. Paul, Minn.; Wixom, Mich.; Lorraine, Ohio; Norfolk, Va., and Kansas City.