UAW Sets Contract Sights on GM

DETROIT (AP) — With a set of precedent-setting contract terms from DaimlerChrysler AG in its pocket, the United Auto Workers appears ready to focus on negotiating a new contract with General Motors Corp.

GM will be expected to match many terms of Daimler-Chrysler's apparent agreement — a four-year contract with 3 percent raises every year, a signing bonus and clauses aimed at protecting union jobs.

Analysts said that given the industry's record sales and profits, the UAW could win more than in the past — and that all sides would work to avoid costly national strikes.

"I don't think at this point that [UAW President] Stephen Yokich would have signed off on anything that wasn't a pretty good deal," said John Revitte, a professor at the Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations. "He wanted something that would give him lever-age at GM or at Ford."

GM spokesman Edd Snyder said lower-level talks with the UAW took place Sept. 16. The GM contract covers 222,000 workers, including those at Delphi Automotive, GM's former parts division.

The agreement on a new national contract for 75,000 DaimlerChrysler workers came Sept. 16, after three months of talks and more than 40 hours of marathon bargaining. Terms of the tentative agreement were not released by com-pany or union spokesmen.

But local union officials in Indiana and New York said the deal was a four-year contract — rather than the standard three-year pact — with a 3 percent annual wage increase plus a $1,350 signing bonus. Recent contracts had in some years paid lump sums rather than percentage increases.

The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press reported the base wages for assembly workers would reach $22.63 per hour in the fourth year, up from the current $20.11.