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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Uaw Will Remain In Negotiations

Associated Press

United Auto Workers President Stephen Yokich said Monday that the union had no immediate plans for a strike against General Motors Corp. despite failing to reach an agreement during weekend negotiations.

The union had set a midnight Sunday deadline for a deal, but agreed to continue negotiations Tuesday for a contract with the last of the Big Three automakers.

While Yokich said he was committed to reaching an agreement at the bargaining table, he also left open the possibility that some UAW-GM locals could call strikes at individual plants.

“These locals are going to have to take a look at it themselves,” Yokich told a news conference at Solidarity House, the union’s headquarters.

Once the deadline passed, the UAW’s extension of the old GM contract terminated, freeing the union to call a strike. UAW-GM locals with no local agreements are free to call walkouts with the national union’s approval.

Yokich said GM employees would continue to work for the time being without a contract.

Dale Brickner, a labor professor at Michigan State University, said Yokich was “sort of ratcheting up the suspense, if not the threat. It keeps the pressure on GM to sort of put the final touches on the thing.”

Neither the union nor GM would say what was holding up the talks, though Yokich said several locals had “some sticky issues” that UAW leaders decided to resolve before signing the pact.

Negotiators met for about 17 hours straight at GM’s headquarters, finally recessing just before 2 a.m. Monday.

Officials at UAW-GM locals across the nation waited by their phones for word of whether they would strike or return to work Monday. They said their members were ready to go out if necessary.

The UAW has scheduled a meeting of its leadership council Saturday in Detroit.

“Either we’ll have a tentative agreement, or General Motors will be starting to feel the effects of a strike,” predicted Joe Burkhamer, president of Local 2209 at GM’s Fort Wayne, Ind., plant.

Though Yokich is broadly supported by the UAW membership, he indicated there has been some criticism of his less-confrontational style.

“One of the things that’s bothersome to us in this whole operation is that some see this as pure weakness, because we weren’t beating the war drums, we weren’t throwing our arsenals,” Yokich said.