DETROIT (Reuters) – A tentative contract between General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and the United Auto Workers union adds U.S. factory jobs and replaces traditional wage increases with profit-sharing, union officials said on Tuesday.

The union, confident that rank-and-file UAW members will support the GM deal, plans to resume intensive negotiations with Chrysler Group LLC before GM workers complete a ratification vote expected by next Thursday, people with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

DETROIT, Sept 20 (Reuters) – About 48,500 General Motors Co
(GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) workers at U.S. factories will begin considering the
details of a proposed four-year contract on Tuesday that
represents the first labor deal for the automaker since its
2009 bailout by the Obama administration.

Local leaders from the United Auto Workers union are
scheduled to meet on Tuesday in Detroit to review and approve
the deal, which will then be sent to a ratification vote by GM
workers expected to be completed within a week.

DETROIT, Sept 19 (Reuters) – As Chrysler Group LLC nears a
four-year contract with the United Auto Workers union, workers
at a Chrysler engine plant have threatened a local strike and
say production schedules threaten quality and safety.

Punishing and routine schedule changes that have workers
pulling a day shift one week and an evening shift the next have
upset many of the more than 400 hourly employees at the Dundee,
Michigan, plant owned and run by Chrysler’s Global Engine
Manufacturing Alliance, or GEMA.

DETROIT, Sept 17 (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and
the United Auto Workers union reached a proposed contract for
almost 49,000 production workers that both sides said would
create new U.S. factory jobs and include profit-sharing
bonuses.

Details of the tentative contract reached on Friday were
being withheld until the contract could be reviewed by UAW
officials at a meeting set for Tuesday in Detroit.

DETROIT, Sept 16 (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and
the United Auto Workers union negotiated into the night Friday
to hammer out a new contract for 49,000 production workers in
the first talks since the top U.S. automaker was saved by a
government bailout.

Earlier on Friday, UAW officials said they were in the
final stage of agreeing on a new contract.

DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and the United Auto Workers union were closing in on a deal on a new contract for 49,000 production workers in talks in Detroit on Friday, people with direct knowledge of the negotiations said.

“I am very optimistic that the negotiations process is entering its final stage,” UAW Vice President Joe Ashton said in an update for the union’s GM workers posted online.

DETROIT, Sept 16 (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and
the United Auto Workers union have made “good progress” toward
an agreement, a person familiar with the talks said on Friday
as negotiations resumed.

Talks also continued at Chrysler Group LLC on Friday
morning.

The UAW has chosen to attempt an agreement with No. 1 U.S.
automaker GM first, before then reaching a deal with Chrysler
and finally with Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), those close to the talks
have said.

DETROIT, Sept 15 (Reuters) – The United Auto Workers union
took a contract grievance against Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)to an
arbitration hearing on Thursday, a day after contracts for all
three Detroit automakers expired and hopes for a quick
settlement were dashed.

The Ford workers’ grievance claims that the company broke
an agreement for equal treatment of unionized workers and
salaried employees by giving white-collar workers a bonus and
not giving a similar bonus to unionized workers.

DETROIT, Sept 14 (Reuters) – At least five auto assembly
plant in North America have slowed output because of a shortage
of carpeting and floormats caused by a flood at a key supplier
plant in Pennsylvania, representatives of the automakers said.

Heavy rains flooded a plant in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania,
operated by Switzerland’s Autoneum Holding AG (AUTON.S: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) last
week, the company said on the plant’s website.

DETROIT (Reuters) – Jury selection began on Wednesday in the trial of a Nigerian man accused of a botched attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on Christmas day in 2009.

The defendant, 24-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was in the courthouse for a separate hearing on procedure and evidence, and watched by closed circuit TV as U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds briefed prospective jurors on the case in a first-floor room.