By Jeffrey Hodgson
TORONTO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The head of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union said on Friday he expects solid support for its tentative deal with General Motors Corp. when workers vote on the agreement this weekend.
CAW president Buzz Hargrove said a clear 'yes' vote would allow the union to focus on choosing between DaimlerChrysler and Ford Motor Co. and announce its next negotiating target by the end of Monday.
"When the leadership says look, this is a good job, and they say that to their membership, generally that means that we should have good ratification votes," Hargrove told reporters on the sidelines of a CAW meeting in Toronto.
"We've had some dialogue over dinner about who should be next, and we're starting to focus better. And by Monday we'll know for sure what we want to do."
The CAW has set Oct. 1 as the deadline to reach a deal with its next negotiating target.
General Motors, seen as the strongest of the Big Three automakers, reached a tentative deal with the union on Tuesday, hours before a strike deadline that would have shut down the Canadian plants and hit GM's operations south of the border.
The tentative three-year pact for 19,000 hourly workers includes a 3-percent pay rise in the first two years of the deal and a two-percent hike in the third year, a signing bonus, additional paid time off and improved health-care benefits.
The agreement won unanimous support on Friday in a vote by about 300 local union leaders from Canadian production facilities. The CAW master bargaining committees from Ford and DaimlerChrysler operations were also present.
Analysts have said talks with the other two U.S. car giants would be trickier, with DaimlerChrysler and Ford under pressure to craft similar deals or face strikes. Asked which would be the tougher set of talks, Hargrove said he was not yet sure.
"Ford appears to be the toughest, but again we have a good relationship with Ford historically. Ford has been the company where we've been able to get settlements for our members without a fight," he said.
"We're hoping that history has not changed under the new leadership of Ford Motor Co. under William Clay Ford, but we won't know that until we get there."
Alex Keeney, the chair of the CAW/Ford master bargaining committee, told the meeting he thought negotiating with GM first had been wise, and he had no hesitation in taking the GM package to Ford workers and recommending a similar deal.
"There's no doubt in my mind that if we'd have went (first) and did this package at Ford Motor Co. we'd still be on the streets today. There's absolutely no doubt that Ford Motor Co. will find this package tough to swallow," Keeney said.
"They're going to like it at some point in time, and I hope we don't force feed them."
While the CAW and General Motors inked an agreement with relative ease, analysts have said the situation is more difficult at the other automakers after closures at Ford's Ontario Truck plant and Chrysler's Pillette Road facility in Windsor, Ontario.
($1=$1.57 Canadian)