Tentative UAW-GM Pact OKd With 3% Pay Raise : Auto industry: Union chief tells pleasure with contract. Details to go before union bargaining council on Tuesday.

The tentative agreement reached early today between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers reportedly includes a 3% raise the first year, 3% lump sum payment the next two and retention of a requirement that GM hire one worker for every two who quit, retire or die.

“I’m just delighted we got this contract settled without a disruption,” UAW President Owen Bieber said in announcing the agreement, reached after a 41-hour bargaining session between the union and the world’s No. 1 auto maker.

Details of the agreement were to be outlined at a meeting this morning in suburban Detroit of the union’s 300-member GM bargaining council, made up of local union presidents and bargaining committee chairmen. But that meeting broke up after only 15 minutes and was rescheduled for Tuesday because the printing of the proposed contract had not been completed.

Bieber said at a news conference before dawn that he was “very, very satisfied” with the agreement on pensions, and GM Vice President Alfred Warren said the contract gives the company latitude to reduce its work force.

The Detroit News reported some details of the agreement today, including the 3% pay raise and the work force agreement.

There had been speculation that GM would push hard to remove or alter the 1-for-2 policy and that the auto maker wants to cut tens of thousands of hourly jobs and close up to four assembly plants to better compete with the Japanese.

The Big Three auto makers lost about 6 percentage points in U.S. market share during the 1980s, while the Japanese gained the same amount.

If approved by the UAW council, the contract would be sent to the rank-and-file for ratification, a process expected to be completed by the end of the month.

The UAW’s old three-year contract with GM expired at midnight Friday, but both sides agreed to extend its terms while talks continued.