UAW begins contract negotiations

USA: National collective bargaining talks between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the U.S "big three" automakers kicked off on July 20 in Detroit, Michigan. The current four-year contracts, which cover more than 720,000 active and retired UAW members, will expire at midnight on September 14, 2007. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger and his bargaining teams met with Chrysler on July 20, and General Motors and Ford on July 23. Busloads of UAW active and retired members rallied outside the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources to mark the day and show their union pride. At a news conference following the Chrysler meeting, Gettelfinger was quoted as telling reporters, "We're going into these negotiations as we do every set of negotiations, which is to look out for the interests of our active and retired membership," noting, "job security is very important to us, and the American automobile industry is very important to this country. So when we fight to preserve jobs, it helps our nation as a whole."