Last-minute agreement heads off auto strike in Canada

TORONTO – The Canadian Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement with General Motors Corp. just minutes before a strike deadline late Tuesday, averting a walkout by 17,000 members and capping weeks of heated negotiations with North America’s Big Three automakers.

The three-year contract with the world’s largest automaker, which comes on the heels of agreements with Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG, was reached after General Motors withdrew a demand for shorter worker breaks at its Oshawa assembly complex outside of Toronto.

GM faced a strike deadline of midnight Tuesday, one both sides wanted to avoid. The last walkout by the Canadian division of General Motors Corp. was in 1996 and lasted 22 days.

CAW president Buzz Hargrove called off the strike but said the union and GM would continue to put the terms of the contract on paper.