The dispute over a controversial new labour contract at Chrysler has moved to the factory floors of Michigan, as union officials visited the assembly lines this week to try and persuade their members to vote ''Yes'' to the agreement the union has hammered out with the Chrysler management. (See: Will Chrysler workers nix their UAW contract; and, what happens next?) Though the union says the contract is the best they can get, large numbers of workers thinks it is a bad deal, and too many people are afraid of okaying it. The workers fear that the union is giving up too much, without any commitment from Chrysler to keep their plants operating.

Chrysler and Ford are seeking some of the largest US labour concessions in decades. General Motors workers approved a contract this month, with two-thirds of workers voting favourably. But the Chrysler deal has faced opposition almost from the start. The ratification vote, which is on at Chrysler plants all over the US this week, is expected to end on Saturday 27 October.

Like the GM deal, the Chrysler agreement includes an increase in health-care costs for workers and changes to union work rules that would create a class of plant workers paid just $14 or $15 an hour (Chrysler workers make about $28 per hour). The union says its contract protects workers'' current salaries and seniority, but newly hired personnel could be put into the lower-paid categories.

Given the company''s turbulent history - it almost went bankrupt in the late ''70s, when the federal government bailed it out - and takeover battles with Kirk Kerkorian, who was eventually fended off, Chrysler workers are deeply fearful.

Chrysler was bought by private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management earlier this year, after a rocky nine-year partnership with Germany''s Daimler-Benz. The problem is, union workers don''t trust Cerberus. They feel the owner is cash-rich, and doesn''t need any concessions.

Voting on the Chrysler contract appears to be at the halfway point. The contract covers 45,000 workers at 59 facilities. Autoworkers in Sterling Heights and Warren, Michigan, which employ about 9,700 union members, who have been the targets of heavy lobbying, begin voting on Wednesday 24 October.

Union officials pressed the panic button when two plants in Indiana voted on Tuesday to reject the contract by a huge margin, putting the naysayers in a slender majority for the first time.

An Indiana casting plant rejected the proposed contract by a 79 per cent margin while a nearby transmission plant turned down the deal by a 72 per cent margin.

Out of the more than 4,000 workers in the two plants, 2,855 voted against the contract, compared with 1,053 for the deal. Local officials were active in a grassroots campaign to kill the deal and send union negotiators back to the bargaining table.

If the deal collapses, UAW President Ronald A Gettelfinger has a number of options. He can seek a new vote within a week, or ask to renegotiate the deal with the management. Or, he could move on to the Ford deal, which hasn''t been negotiated or voted on, and then come back to Chrysler.