UAW Gives Chrysler Until Midnight Thursday to Agree to Pact

The United Auto Workers union gave Chrysler Corp. until midnight Thursday to agree to a new three-year labor contract that the union worked out at Ford Motor Co. on Sept. 16.

UAW spokesman Karl Mantyla confirmed that the UAW imposed what he called a “settlement deadline.” The union could orchestrate selective strikes at the third-largest U.S. auto maker if the two sides do not have a tentative agreement by then or are not close to reaching one.

Chrysler spokesman Lee Sechler confirmed the deadline but would only say that negotiations were continuing as of late Monday evening. The two sides also met over the weekend, he said.

Negotiations covering about 65,000 U.S. hourly workers at Chrysler started shortly after the UAW reached a tentative agreement covering Ford’s 96,000 U.S. hourly workers almost two weeks ago. The Ford-UAW agreement is expected to be ratified by Ford’s rank-and-file workers Wednesday, after being overwhelmingly approved by the union’s 200-member Ford-UAW bargaining council Sept. 20.