UAW selects GM as the target for talks, any strike

With their contract deadline almost in sight, the United Auto Workers (UAW) shifted strategy Thursday and tagged General Motors as the target for their bargaining with the Big Three Detroit automakers.

The union's contract with GM, Ford and Chrysler expires at midnight.

Until the union's last-minute reversal of strategy, it had been bargaining on all three fronts, a tactic it used in its last round of negotiations with the automakers.

Thursday, it extended its talks with Ford and Chrysler.

Traditionally, the union has gone after one automaker, then sought to apply the same deal to the others.

In this case, the union chose GM "because of maximum leverage," said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley. "GM is in the best shape of the three, and the union feels that it's best to negotiate an endgame there."

Though the move sets up the possibility of a strike against GM, Shaiken predicted the UAW would continue to talk with the company for several days beyond the contract deadline.

"They don't want to walk out," he said.

Of the three, GM was a logical choice because it posted a profit in the last three quarters and is the furthest along in a turnaround plan that calls for closing 12 North American plants and eliminating more than 34,000 union jobs by the end of 2008.

But GM also is in greatest need of relief on retiree health care because it has by far the most retired workers: 432,000, counting union and white-collar.

GM is liable for $64 billion in current and future retiree health-care obligations, while Ford has about $31 billion and Chrysler $19 billion.

GM has pushed hardest in negotiations to shift the health-care burden to the union in a trust fund the union would manage.

But how much GM would give the union to take over the responsibility has been the main sticking point.

In an e-mail message to local leaders, UAW Vice President Cal Rapson, head of the union's GM department, said the automaker had been selected as the lead company to reach the first contract settlement.

Ford and Chrysler both said they agreed to extend the current contracts indefinitely beyond the midnight Friday expiration.

One of the major issues on the table, according to those familiar with the talks, involves the union's acceptance of two-tier wages, which would allow automakers to hire new workers at far less than the $28 an hour senior UAW workers earn and give them more flexibility to use temporary workers who would make less.

Contract talks formally began in July, but all sides had started talking months earlier.