G.M. Accord Finishes Talks for U.A.W.

DETROIT, Sept. 18 - The United Automobile Workers union concluded its contract negotiations with the Big Three and two major suppliers today after granting its most significant concessions in two decades.

The deals, which will result in thousands of job cuts as roughly a dozen plants are closed or sold, reflect the broad competitive struggles of domestic manufacturers, and the union’s effort to balance the desires of its members with the shrinking market share and profits of the automakers.

This morning, the U.A.W. announced it had reached deals with General Motors and Delphi, the world’s largest auto parts company, which G.M. spun off in 1999.

The agreements came three days after the U.A.W. reached tentative agreements with the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group, a unit of DaimlerChrysler, as well as with Visteon, the parts subsidiary spun off by Ford in 2000.

"Since the start of these negotiations, one of our goals has been to bring this industry together," said Ron Gettelfinger, the U.A.W. president, at a news conference this morning.

Rick Wagoner, the chairman and chief executive of G.M., said the agreement "will enable us to work together effectively to address what is pretty clearly a challenging set of competitors."

The factories to be closed include Chrysler parts plants in Detroit and Indianapolis, and Ford assembly plants in Edison, N.J.; Dearborn, Mich.; and two in the Cleveland area. Reuters also reported today that G.M. would close a plant in Baltimore that makes midsize vans.

For the companies’ workers, the annual increases in wages and pension benefits will be scaled back. But their health care benefits will remain largely intact, save for modest increases in co-payments for brand-name prescription drugs for active workers and for future, but not current, retirees.

Among concessions granted to the U.A.W. by DaimlerChrysler was an agreement that permits the union to hold a card check at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Ala. In a card check, workers sign cards designating that they want to belong to the union, rather than vote in more formal balloting at their factory.

In the past, Mercedes had resisted union efforts to organize the factory. The union has never organized a plant solely owned by a foreign automaker, but it has leverage over Mercedes because DaimlerChrysler owns it as well as Chrysler.

The talks were wrapped up with unprecedented speed, just four days after contracts covering more than 700,000 autoworkers and retirees expired.

"In the last five days, we have successfully concluded negotiations with five of the largest manufacturers in the world," Mr. Gettelfinger said this morning. "That’s five for five."

With both sides remarking on the professionalism of the other, the tenor of the negotiations reflected the difficult competitive realities that have domestic manufacturers and their labor unions fighting for survival against tough rivals.

The generous terms of the last contracts were set in 1999, when the Big Three were riding high on profits generated by their domination of the market for sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

As the talks were reaching a climax, industry sales figures for August showed Toyota had passed Chrysler in monthly sales for the first time, while the Big Three companies’ market share slipped to just 57.9 percent, a record low. And imports are making inroads in full-size S.U.V.’s and pickups.

"You sort of have the Big Four - G.M., Ford, Chrysler and the U.A.W. - and they’re all sinking," said James P. Womack, an industry analyst and the co-author of "The Machine That Changed The World," among the first books to warn of foreign companies’ threat to Detroit. "Therefore, they discover they’ve got more in common than not.

"It’s a sort of sober realization that the future isn’t like the past," he added. But he questioned how much the deal would help the Big Three and the suppliers.

"If you look at the total magnitude of problems and the total short-term benefit, you have to ask if there’s really a match," he said.

Among the most surprising developments this week was Ford’s decision to keep open a plant in Hazelwood, Mo., in the St. Louis area, that it had said must close as part of its corporate turnaround plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/19/business/19AUTO.html?ex=1064995235&ei=1&en=ff983efbac07eefc