Mr. Gettelfinger and the union’s vice president for Chrysler, General Holiefield, put on an intense push for ratification over the past few days. A number of local leaders credited Mr. Holiefield’s efforts, in particular, for the contract’s approval.  “There’s no question this was a difficult set of negotiations during difficult times for the U.S. auto industry,” Mr. Holiefield said in the union’s statement.  The Chrysler vote was far more turbulent than the process at General Motors, where 66 percent of the members who voted approved the contract this month after a two-day strike.  Workers at Chrysler walked off the job for six hours, but local union leaders were split over the agreement. It was rejected by four assembly plants, but received support at a number of smaller factories as well as four big plants in the Detroit area, which approved the contract on Wednesday.  Opponents voiced concerns that the Chrysler pact did not provide as many guarantees of future work as the G.M. contract. That issue is front and center at Ford, which lost $12.6 billion last year and does not expect to earn a profit in North America before 2009.  Talks there, which continued at a slow pace during the Chrysler vote, are expected to step up over the weekend. Generally, the U.A.W. expects to win the same contract terms under its practice of pattern bargaining, but as at Chrysler, the union may have to settle on something apart from the G.M. pact.  “There’s a lot of confusion at my plant, with all the things that have happened” at G.M. and Chrysler, said Jim Stoufer, the president of Local 249 at Ford’s assembly plant outside Kansas City, Mo.  “We don’t know where we’re at, how Ford’s going to be approached and how it’s going to work for us, since we’re in worse shape than everybody else.”  Ford, with a market share in the United States that has dropped by nearly 2 percentage points this year, to 16 percent, has yet to identify all the plants it expects to close under a restructuring plan called the Way Forward.  “If there’s going to be a difficult issue, that’s it,” said Richard Block, acting director at the Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations. “The U.A.W. is going to want Ford to reveal any product development plans that it has.”  Chrysler’s disclosure that it had no plans for a future investment at the St. Louis South plant outside Fenton, Mo., prompted workers there and at the adjacent St. Louis North plant to reject the contract. Chrysler workers in Newark, Del., where the plant is scheduled to close, also rejected the contract.  Rather that risk such no votes, Ford instead may try to give as little information as possible about any factory whose future is on the line, said David L. Gregory, a professor of labor law at St. John’s University in Queens.  “Ford I don’t think is in a position to make anything beyond the barest good-faith declaration of principle that they’re going to do their best,” he said.  Workers, however, are likely to want reassurances before they will vote in favor of the contract. Even those promises are no guarantee, however. G.M. has announced plans to eliminate shifts at two Michigan factories since its contract was approved.  It remains to be seen whether Ford workers will be in as feisty a mood as their Chrysler counterparts. But there is cause for concern, analysts said.  Two years ago, Ford workers barely approved a series of cuts in health care benefits that G.M. workers voted to accept. The slim margin at Ford was a reason Chrysler workers were never asked to vote on similar cuts, for fear they would turn them down.  Ford workers, in addition, have the benefit of having watched their counterparts at the other companies wrestle with the cuts in their contract.  “At G.M. and Chrysler, the auto workers really rose up to give a big fight against concessions,” said Ron Lare, 60, who has worked at Ford’s assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich., for 20 years.  Mr. Lare said he was concerned that the contracts created a two-tier wage system that meant newly hired workers would be paid less than their elders.  “The issue seems to be whether we’re going to sell out the next generation of auto workers,” Mr. Lare said.  Nick Bunkley and Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting.
United Automobile Workers members at Chrysler approved a new agreement, clearing the way for talks to accelerate at Ford Motor.