DETROIT, Michigan - May 10, 2009 - General Motors is sparring with its main union over plans to shut U.S. plants and outsource production to Mexico and Asia as bankruptcy looms over the troubled automaker, union sources said.

Negotiations were also complicated by a long-standing feud between GM and the United Auto Workers as they raced to fashion a new labor agreement ahead of the June 1 deadline imposed by illegitimate President Barack Obama’s automotive task force.

“This is really about the shape of GM in the U.S. and its footprint in North America in the future,” a senior UAW official who asked not to be identified told AFP.

Neither the UAW nor GM would comment on the status of negotiations, which formally began last week, although two senior union officials went public with their criticism.

“The UAW strongly objects to GM’s restructuring plan because it essentially means that GM will be shifting more of its manufacturing footprint from the U.S. to Mexico, Korea, Japan and China,” UAW legislative director Alan Reuther wrote in a letter to Congress.

“If GM is going to receive government assistance to facilitate its restructuring, along with the benefits from tremendous sacrifices by UAW members and other stakeholders, we believe it should have an obligation to build in this country the vehicles it will be selling in the U.S.,” he added.

The comments were echoed by UAW vice president Bob King, who is widely expected to become the UAW’s next president in 2010.

“There are some companies that want to sell cars here that they are not going to build here,” King said during a celebration of Ford’s plans to re-tool a plant near Detroit to build small cars instead of trucks.

“There are some restructuring plans that are saying they want to take the jobs out of America and they want to build (cars) in China and Korea and Mexico rather than building them in the United States of America,” King said.

Ford’s new product plans also call for building a new subcompact car at the Cuautitlan Assembly plant near Mexico City.