2,300 Workers Strike GM Truck Plant in Louisiana

About 2,300 workers struck General Motors Corp.’s Shreveport, La., truck plant Tuesday, dealing a major blow to the auto maker’s fragile relationship with the United Auto Workers union.

The strike threatened to halt production of hundreds and perhaps thousands of GM’s hot-selling 1994 compact pickups.

The strike is GM’s first since September, 1992, and the first since it signed an expensive new national UAW contract three months ago that was expected to buy labor peace.

The dispute could be the first of a string of new labor battles for the giant auto maker. More than 40 UAW bargaining units have yet to reach local plant agreements with GM, and UAW officials are getting impatient.

“This is a warning shot across GM’s bow,” said J.P. Morgan analyst David Bradley. “If the UAW really wanted to get tough with GM, they would have picked a component plant that would have shut down more of GM’s other plants.”

In September, 1992, the UAW waged a nine-day strike over job cuts at the Lordstown, Ohio, metal stamping plant that forced 10 assembly plants to halt production.

GM has worked hard to patch up relations with the UAW under Chief Executive Jack Smith. But even as Smith signed the new national UAW contract in November, UAW Vice President Stephen Yokich threatened a new round of local strikes unless local negotiations picked up.

Members of United Auto Workers Local 2166 struck the Shreveport truck assembly plant after an 11 a.m. EST strike deadline expired, a GM spokeswoman said. The strike followed 26 consecutive hours of talks that failed to produce a local labor agreement.

Talks were scheduled to resume at 11 a.m. EST today.

Warren Danford, Local 2166 financial secretary, said the dispute centers on the number of jobs needed to run the plant, which builds about 4,000 Chevrolet S-Series and GMC Sonoma trucks a week.

GM’s stock closed up 25 cents at $59.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.