GM CEO meets with union in bid to end auto strike

With a strike at General Motors almost four weeks old, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra met with top United Auto Workers officials Wednesday to try and broker a deal.

The gathering came after GM’s negotiators had given UAW brass a proposal Monday morning. By Wednesday, the union still hadn’t responded with a firm counteroffer. So Barra invited UAW President Gary Jones and Vice President Terry Dittes to meet at the automaker’s Detroit headquarters, where bargaining has been taking place, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the encounter didn’t yield an immediate agreement, the two sides bargained later into the night that evening and are making progress, said the people, who asked not to be identified describing private discussions.

One key sticking point for the union remains job security, Dittes has written in letters to union members this week. GM has some plants in the U.S. operating on just one shift. The fear is that without adding more models to build, underused passenger-car factories will eventually be idled just as the Chevy Cruze sedan plant in Lordstown, Ohio, was earlier this year, one person said.

GM and the UAW have made progress negotiating on key issues including the use of temporary workers and the path those members will have to reach fulltime status. The two sides also have settled on future health care benefits.

In its first formal offer, which the union turned down, GM promised to invest $7 billion in U.S. plants that would support 5,400 jobs, most of which would be new hires. As part of the offer, the company said it would construct a new electric-vehicle battery factory in Lordstown and build an electric truck in its plant bordering Detroit and the town of Hamtramck.