GM, Union in Tentative Agreement : Autos: The accord would end a walkout at key Lansing body plant. But another strike is brewing in Indiana.

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement Monday to end a 4-day-old strike at a Lansing, Mich., plant that makes car bodies for the company’s second best-selling model.

Union and company officials declined to discuss details of the agreement, which is to be voted on by members of Local 602 tonight. The strike, which idled 8,700 workers, centered on local issues but appeared to be part of a broader union strategy to oppose GM’s attempts to cut UAW jobs.

The 4,200 Lansing workers walked off the job on Friday, less than a month after GM settled a costly strike at its Lordstown, Ohio, parts-making plant. And even as the Lansing strike winds down, workers at another GM parts plant are awaiting permission from UAW leaders to issue a five-day warning to management that they will walk out if local issues are not resolved.

Local disputes are generally settled without much fanfare, but the stakes are higher these days for both sides. GM has said it will slash 54,000 UAW jobs by 1995 as it struggles to restructure its bloated and unprofitable North American car business.

And while company management tries to assure investors and lenders that it can stand up to its union, union leaders are looking to show an angry and frightened membership that they are willing to fight for their jobs.

The key issue at Lansing was GM’s effort to eliminate 300 union positions by having workers take their breaks all at once, rather than employing people to relieve those on break. Local 602 workers also complained that some health and safety standards at the plant violated their local agreement.

Still, each side expressed satisfaction Monday at the outcome of the Lansing negotiations.

“I feel pretty good about it,” said Ted Hartman, president of Local 602. “We were able to work things out.”

In a statement, GM said the agreement “continues to support our needs in managing the facility and the declining work force at the competitive levels we have committed to achieve, and it addressed the concerns of the work force.

“The strike was unfortunate. However, we were able to resolve these local issues and now we will resume our focus on serving our customers,” the statement concluded.

But that focus may well be disrupted again soon if workers at GM’s Anderson, Ind., parts plant don’t settle their dispute with management regarding 800 jobs that they say have been “out-sourced” to non-union companies since 1986.

The Anderson local requested a five-day strike notice from UAW headquarters earlier this month, and a union official said Monday that he expects to hear from Detroit Thursday morning.

The strike at the Lansing car body plant idled 3,000 workers at the neighboring chassis plant and 1,500 workers at a metal-fabricating plant, halting production of the popular Pontiac Grand Am and the slower-selling Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Achieva. The Lansing strike is costing about $2 million a day. The Lordstown strike, which idled 43,000 workers over nine days, cost the company an estimated $100 million.

But a strike at the Anderson plant, which supplies lights and bumpers to nearly all of GM’s assembly plants, could have the most devastating effect yet on GM’s car and truck production.