Early Wednesday morning, October 31, marathon contract talks between the United Auto Workers union and the Ford Motor Co. that had been running since Tuesday broke off but were expected to resume in the afternoon.

The union concluded contract deals with both General Motors and Chrysler LLC after brief national strikes in both cases and contentious internal voting on the Chrysler agreement.

The union represents approximately 58,500 Ford workers. Because UAW President Ron Gettelfinger was participating in the talks on Tuesday pundits predict the bargaining is entering its final stage.

The chief negotiator for the UAW in the Ford talks, Bob King, indicated earlier in the month that the union was looking for "the same things" in its talks with Ford as in its talks with GM and Chrysler.

Primarily that means the union will be looking for greater assurances of product investment from Ford as well as a commitment by the company to contribute to a union managed health care fund for retired members.

Both sides have made it clear that they would prefer to arrive at a contract agreement without a national strike. Both previous strikes were brief in duration, just six hours for Chrysler and two days for GM.