UAW officials said the agreement also called for GM to fill 160 vacancies at the plant with laid-off workers from other GM facilities and add another 140 jobs.

Earlier last week, to avoid a strike at the neighboring assembly plant in Lordstown, GM agreed to add 600 jobs to the operation there and fill them with laid-off UAW members. Future layoffs because of slow car sales would be made first at GM's assembly plant in Ramos, Mexico, which produces the small Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunbirds.

Although GM and UAW officials have insisted that the Lordstown strike was strictly a local dispute and not part of a national union strategy to soften up the company for next year's contract negotiations, the job security terms of the weekend agreement are likely to help set the rules of engagement for the new bargaining round. UAW contracts with GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. expire in September 1993.