Detroit 3 hourly buyouts mostly done: UAW

DETROIT (Reuters) - The broad union-negotiated buyouts and early retirement offers to hourly workers at U.S.-based automakers have largely run their course, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said on Tuesday.

Thousands upon thousands of hourly workers at General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler LLC CBS.UL have accepted buyout offers from the Detroit-based automakers in recent years.

"I think we pretty much have got that behind us," Gettelfinger said at Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit.

Gettelfinger said Ford and Chrysler missed their buyout targets and were trying to catch up to the market and the companies also probably would like to take advantage of the entry-level wage rates negotiated with the union last year.

Ford earlier this year said that about 4,200 hourly workers had accepted buyout offers. The company told the UAW earlier in September that it had more than 4,000 more U.S. hourly workers than it needed given slumping sales. It is offering plant-by-plant buyouts.

Chrysler also said last week that it would offer almost all of its 14,000 UAW-represented factory workers in Michigan a new and richer round of buyouts.

Gettelfinger said after early buyout efforts that netted thousands of workers, the programs have fewer takers.

"As the program went on, the economy went in the tank, as the economy went in the tank, people got afraid," he said.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by David Bailey, editing by Dave Zimmerman)