GM Workers Approve Contract, Ending Strike : Autos: The company agrees to hire about 660 at the Flint plant. Analysts say it needs to let some go.

General Motors Corp. workers at a key parts plant in Flint, Mich., approved a new contract Sunday, officially ending a three-day strike that caused 10 other GM plants to halt assembly and component production.

The contract, approved by a 96% margin, calls for GM to hire about 660 additional workers at the AC Delco Electronics East plant in Flint. GM also agreed to spend about $70 million to $90 million at the factory through 1998 to produce new parts there, according to United Auto Workers union officials familiar with the agreement.

The new work will preserve more than 200 jobs that would have otherwise been lost at the plant, said union officials.

With the Flint strike over, analysts are now concerned that UAW locals at other GM plants across the country will use the settlement as a blueprint to get the giant auto maker to hire more employees to reduce what the union claims are unfair work loads. Analysts say GM is the nation’s high-cost auto producer and has to shed more workers, not hire them, to become more competitive.

“The potential for other work stoppages remains high,” said Salomon Bros. auto analyst Jack Kirnan.

GM officials didn’t immediately give specifics of the agreement, but confirmed that many more workers will be hired at Flint. The plant’s 6,800 workers struck last week after GM refused to hire as many as 500 new workers as part of an agreement reached with UAW Local 651 at the plant 11 months ago.

“We will be hiring several hundred people over a period of time,” said GM spokesman Dan Dolan, adding that many of the workers will be hired by the middle of next year. “There will be some transfers from other plants and some new hires,” he said.

In return, GM will be allowed to “benchmark,” or make competitive comparisons of its Flint plant with similar production done outside the factory, Dolan said. Such a practice is designed to lower costs through increased production efficiencies.

Several hundred Flint workers were already on the job Sunday to resume shipments and production of fuel pumps, filters and instrument panel parts that go into many GM cars and trucks.

The strike idled more than 30,000 workers at nine assembly and one other component plants in the United States and Canada.

GM said that it planned to resume normal operation by today at the Flint plant as well as all plants shut down by the strike.