Strike Ends at Chrysler Plant but Not GM

United Auto Workers union members who went on strike Friday reached a tentative agreement with Chrysler Corp. and planned to head back to work, a union official said.

“The strike is over,” said Jesse Hamm, a steward with the UAW local at an important plant that manufactures transmissions for the No. 3 auto maker. A prolonged walkout could have crippled Chrysler production nationwide.

Details on the tentative agreement were not immediately available.

A second strike, at a General Motors Corp. plant in Michigan, remained unresolved late Friday.

Alan Miller, a spokesman for Chrysler, confirmed that a tentative agreement had been reached. He said the plant would reopen Monday morning.

Both disputes involved efforts by the United Auto Workers to retain or add jobs in an industry that has shed tens of thousands of American laborers in recent years.

Negotiations between Chrysler and the union continued after the 5,700 members of UAW Local 685 left their jobs. The strike could have cost Chrysler an estimated $33 million a day.

Nearly 90% of Chrysler’s cars and trucks use transmissions made at the Kokomo plant. It supplies assembly operations in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Delaware, Ontario, Mexico and Austria.

News of the strikes sent auto stocks lower on Friday in heavy trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Chrysler lost 87.5 cents a share to close at $41.75 while GM shares fell 87.5 cents to finish at $44.

The Kokomo workers wanted Chrysler to commit to producing a next-generation truck transmissions at their plant. The auto maker, which plans to introduce the transmission in the late 1990s, has not said where they will be built. If production is moved elsewhere, several hundred jobs at Kokomo might be cut.

The strike against GM shut down the auto maker’s Pontiac East truck assembly plant, exacerbating the company’s problems in meeting buyer demand. But unlike the Chrysler, walkout, other GM plants won’t immediately be forced to close.

UAW Local 594, which represents the 5,500 workers on strike at the truck plant and an associated engineering center, wants the company to create jobs at the plant for 1,500 workers whose positions were eliminated when GM closed its Pontiac West truck assembly plant in December.

UAW-GM talks at Pontiac recessed Friday afternoon and were scheduled to resume today.