Negotiating teams from the UAW met into the night Monday with General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC but face the prospect of extending current contracts that expire Wednesday night. hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said the automaker and the UAW are not close to a deal, but continue to target Wednesday night for completion of a tentative pact.
“The negotiations are not concluded and I don’t have a contract yet. We are not close,” Marchionne told reporters at the Frankfurt auto show.
Parallel talks between the UAW and GM and Chrysler in Detroit are expected to continue into the night Tuesday. Talks at Ford Motor Co. also continue, but lag behind those at GM and Chrysler, sources familiar with the talks said.
Ford and the union agreed to bargain past tomorrow’s expiration of their current labor contract, Marcey Evans, a Ford spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg.
Ford is declining to comment about details of the talks, the statement said. The four-year contract expires at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
GM and Chrysler are working to narrow the gap on issues including the size of signing bonuses for workers once a new contract is ratified, the sources said.
Representatives of the GM and Chrysler councils from local bargaining units have not yet been summoned to Detroit to review proposed contract terms, which must occur before a deal is presented to workers.
That process typically takes a day, which suggests GM and Chrysler are running out of time to clear a deal by the deadline just before midnight on Wednesday.
If the deadline is not met, the union and the company teams would have to agree to extend the current contracts, which is seen as a routine matter, labor analysts said.
A UAW spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
