UAW-GM Strike Settled

The UAW-GM strike has been settled after two days:

Negotiators from the United Auto Workers union and General Motors reached a tentative agreement on a groundbreaking deal early Wednesday to end a two-day old strike by 73,000 workers, according to the union and the company.

Terms of the agreement were not immediately available, but the statement from the company said the deal does include the establishment of a union-controlled trust fund that will assume responsibility for future retiree health care costs from GM (Charts, Fortune 500), the nation's No. 1 automaker.

Getting agreement for that shift of costs, estimated at more than $50 billion, was the key bargaining goal of the talks for GM.

This is an important development not only for the future of the auto industry, but also for how retiree benefits liabilities will be handled by large industries in the future.

PS