AUTOS

GM Reaches Tentative Agreement With Electrical Union: A new labor contract between about 20,000 electrical and components workers and General Motors Corp. would avert a strike that could have halted production at many of the auto maker’s North American assembly plants. GM and the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers (IUE) union reached agreement Thursday night, company and union officials said. The tentative GM-IUE agreement is largely patterned after the agreement reached between GM and the United Auto Workers union last month, IUE training director Dave Ramey said. The contract calls for a 3% pay raise in the first year of the accord, retroactive to Sept. 20, with a 3% lump-sum payment in the second and third years, he said.