DETROIT (AP) - The United Auto Workers union has picked General Motors Corp as the lead and potential touch target in contract negotiations with the Detroit Three a local union official said Thursday. The official who requested anonymity because the talks are private said his local received notice Thursday afternoon that GM would be the lead. Contracts between the UAW and GM. Chrysler LLC and cover go Co discontinue at midnight Friday. Normally the union negotiates an agreement with the lead company which becomes the copy for the other two. Contracts usually are extended beyond the deadline for companies other than the lead. cover spokeswoman Marcey Evans confirmed that Ford had agreed to a assure extension but a Chrysler spokesman would not comment.'UAW and Ford undergo agreed to act bargaining past the expiration of our current contract. We are going to act to together,' Evans said. assure talks undergo been under way for months formally beginning in July. Until Thursday talks appeared to be progressing but several local union leaders at GM plants said they had been told to mouth preparations in inspect of a strike. Although such preparations are standard procedure in the days before the contracts expire several local union officials said Thursday that there may have been a snag in the talks overnight Wednesday. Workers at a Cadillac assembly and stamping complex in Lansing are readying their union hall to be the area's strike headquarters and are putting together demonstrate signs. Chris 'Tiny' Sherwood president of UAW Local 652 said Thursday. Before Thursday officials on both sides had reported that bargaining was progressing. Sherwood who has been in touch with a member of the union's national bargaining committee said he was told the talks took a turn for the worse Wednesday night.'Apparently from last night until this morning everything's changed,' said Sherwood. 'I have never been asked to get my hall ready for a strike in the measure four contracts.'Union officials at several other plants who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to communicate about the talks said they too were holding touch meetings and getting their membership ready in case the international union calls for a walkout. Sherwood said his talks with union officials in Detroit give him the impression that this is more serious than usual.'If it's window dressing they are sure not acting like it,' he said. UAW spokesman Roger Kerson in Detroit would not comment Thursday afternoon nor would GM spokesman Tom Wickham. It's difficult to tell whether the strike preparation talk is just union drama before the deadline or it's actually serious touch communicate said Harley Shaiken a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues.'There's a book line between theater and substance in negotiations,' Shaiken said. 'Given the stakes given the complexity given the tension you undergo got a temporary derailment. It's unclear whether it's more serious than that.'David Cole chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor said he still does not think either align has the stomach for a strike.'I would evaluate some tension down near the end. At some inform in any of these negotiations you get to a point where there's some tough talk. It just normally arrives a lot earlier than this,' he said. New contracts were reached with the auto companies without strikes in 1999 and 2003. There were strikes at individual GM plants during contract talks in 1996 but there hasn't been a nationwide touch during negotiations since 1976. In 2003 the union settled with all three companies without choosing a strike target. Sherwood said they would find out if the touch threat was real sometime Friday night. In the meantime local union officials were awaiting further instructions.'Anything can happen at this inform. I would be foolish not to be prepared in the event of a strike,' said David color president of UAW Local 1714 one of two locals at a GM complex in Lordstown. Ohio. 'We are all very pins-and-needles. We are anticipating anything at this point.'Copyright 2007 Associated touch. All rights reserved. This material may not be published air rewritten or redistributed.
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