AUTOMOTIVE

Ford Averts Missouri Strike: Negotiators for Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers reached an agreement to avert a strike at the company’s Kansas City, Mo., assembly plant. About 3,800 hourly workers had threatened to walk off the job at midnight Saturday to protest a variety of health and safety grievances and the loss of 55 seat-manufacturing jobs to an outside supplier. Ford spokesman Bert Serre said the agreement was reached shortly after 10 p.m. EST and that production at the car and truck plant would resume today as scheduled. The plant, which builds the Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz cars and two popular F-series model trucks, had been operating six days a week recently to keep up with demand for the Supercab and Flareside model pickup trucks. Serre said all outstanding health and safety issues have been resolved, but he declined to offer specifics.