GM, UAW Talk Past Deadline

The United Auto Workers and General Motors talked four hours past their midnight deadline for contract negotiations before agreeing to resume bargaining later today. They extended talks on an "hour-to-hour" basis on a deal that would include a union-controlled trust to assume GM's $50-billion liability for retiree health care.
 

The UAW is open to the plan, the Wall Street Journal reports, but was asking for more funding for the trust than GM had offered. The UAW chose GM as the lead negotiator—and strike target—this year because GM is financially healthiest but also has the largest pension burden, according to the Journal, and any deal brokered with them should be acceptable to Ford and Chrysler. (More General Motors stories.)