Chrysler may drive a hard bargain

detroit -- If there was a script that automakers were supposed to follow for UAW contract talks, Chrysler seems to have overlooked it.

As negotiations continued Monday at Chrysler’s Auburn Hills, Mich., headquarters, the United Auto Workers set a deadline of Wednesday morning to agree on a new contract, or else workers could strike.

The deadline may be a tactic the union is using to squeeze some more concessions from the company. But it also may be that Chrysler isn’t just going to agree to the same terms that General Motors Corp. did last week just because that’s how it’s traditionally done.

Chrysler’s needs are different from GM’s requirements, analysts said, so a deal requires cost cuts in different places.

The union may have set the strike deadline for its 49,000 hourly workers because of how far Chrysler wants to push for cost cuts.

“We think that they may be holding out for something more than GM got,” said Aaron Bragman, an industry analyst for consulting firm Global Insight.

The UAW went on strike for nearly two days last month before coming to a tentative agreement with General Motors on Sept. 26.

Workers with the nation’s largest automaker are expected to wrap up voting on the agreement by Wednesday.

The union normally settles with one U.S. automaker and then uses that deal as a pattern for an agreement with the other two.

Among the differences this time, analysts say, are healthcare givebacks granted to General Motors and Ford Motor Co. in 2005 that Chrysler didn’t get, worth approximately $340 million a year.

A person briefed on the negotiations said the two sides had not agreed on giving the same deal to Chrysler. The person requested anonymity because the talks were private.

Several analysts also said the company and union probably were apart on setting up a Chrysler-funded union-run trust that would take on the company’s roughly $18 billion in retiree healthcare costs.