Ford, UAW marathon talks run into early Saturday

DETROIT (Reuters) - Some high-level negotiators for Ford Motor Co. (F.N) and the United Auto Workers union continued talks into the early hours of Saturday as they closed in on a deal that would cap a historic round of bargaining between the union and the embattled U.S. auto industry.

Many negotiators were asked to go home at about 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday, but top-level members of the team, including UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, remained, a person familiar with the talks said.

The person, who requested to not be named due to the confidential nature of the talks, said any development was unlikely to happen in the next few hours, indicating the discussions would continue into the weekend.

Contract negotiations at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters entered their 39th consecutive hour on Saturday, extending a marathon bargaining session that had begun at around 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday.

A Ford representative declined comment, while a UAW representative did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

In four days of intensive talks, the two sides have made progress on key issues centered on health care costs and Ford's planned plant closings, putting a deal within reach as soon as Friday, another person familiar with the talks said.

Ford's contract with the UAW expired on September 14, after which both sides agreed to a rolling extension.

The UAW has not yet issued a notice terminating its contract extension with Ford, in contrast to the harder line it took with Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp GM.N. The extension could be ended by either party with a 72-hour notice.

Both GM and Chrysler went through short strikes -- a two-day strike at GM and one that lasted six hours at Chrysler -- before a tentative deal was reached.

Ford, which has some 58,000 UAW-represented workers, is widely seen as having developed the most collaborative relationship of any of the three Detroit-based automakers with the union in recent years.

DEEPER CONCESSIONS

But the strength of Ford's ties to the union has also been tested by a push for deeper concessions than those granted to either General Motors Corp or Chrysler.

Ford, which lost a record $12.6 billion last year, has indicated it is looking for about 8,000 to 10,000 additional factory job cuts. That would be in addition to the 27,000 UAW jobs Ford had cut as of June.

In addition, Chrysler's move on Thursday to cut up to 10,000 UAW-represented factory jobs and eliminate four vehicles from its line-up could complicate the union's bargaining with Ford, analysts said.

Chrysler workers last week narrowly ratified a contract giving the automaker the flexibility to bring in new hires at half the wage rates of current workers and to shift some $19 billion in retiree health care costs to a new trust fund.

Chrysler's immediate move to cut another one-fifth of its factory work force will make it more difficult now for UAW leadership to get Ford workers to ratify a contract with sweeping concessions, analysts said.

"Ford workers are going to feel a sense of betrayal to a point as well," said Jerry Tucker, a former UAW official who campaigned against ratification of the Chrysler and GM contracts.

Outside Ford's Rouge plant in Dearborn, several workers heading out from the morning shift said they were worried by the Chrysler example.

"We have faith in our union leadership but we're also biting our nails a bit because of what happened at Chrysler," said one line worker who asked not to be named because union leaders had asked the rank-and-file to avoid the media.

Ford has said it will close 16 North American factories as part of its restructuring but has so far identified only 10 of those. Ford has 33 UAW-represented U.S. factories.

The six still-unidentified plants have now been swept into the contract talks, with Ford holding out the prospect of more limited plant closings in exchange for other concessions.

Automotive News reported Ford had offered to outsource fewer factory jobs with the UAW and to change the way a "two-tier" wage system would be implemented at the automaker's facilities.

Both GM and Chrysler won the right to bring in thousands of new workers at around $14 per hour, about half of the base wage paid to current workers.

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta)