LABOR: All Quiet on the Auto Front

On the fifth floor of Detroit's General Motors Building, in the center of a room ornately decorated in ivory and burnt orange, sits a 52-ft.-long table of highly polished walnut. Before each of the table's 42 seats is a built-in microphone activated by a hidden button. It is a fitting setting for a spirited, but civilized, debate between powerful opponents who have come to know each other well. Such a square-off is exactly what is likely to begin this week when Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Auto Workers, reaches across the...

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