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Joe Imel/Daily News General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant workers picket today in the roadway in front of vehicles minutes after UAW workers went on strike.

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Workers at the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant joined fellow United Auto Workers across the country on picket lines this morning.

The walkout followed the national UAW's failure to come to terms on a contract with General Motors Corp.

About 30 workers formed picket lines at 10 a.m. today at the local plant on Corvette Drive. More workers were joining the ranks as they left the plant.

The hope is that the walkout ends as quickly as possible, said Eldon Renaud, president of Bowling Green UAW Chapter 2164.

“I'm not in the top lines of negotiating,” he said. “I don't know what the sticking points are.”

The UAW launched the national strike against GM, company spokesman Dan Flores said today. It's the first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976.

It remained to be seen what effect the strike would have on the automaker and consumers. The company has sufficient stocks of just about every product to withstand a short strike, according to Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for J.D. Power and Associates.

Charlie Coppinger, who has worked at GM's powertrain plant in Warren for 31 years, walked the picket line along with a handful of others shortly after the deadline passed.

The 51-year-old Rochester Hills resident said he hoped a strike could be settled quickly, but that union members were on the line to back the union and its bargainers.

“We're just here to support them,” said Coppinger, who said leaflets were passed out indicating that the strike was on.

It's the first nationwide UAW strike during contract negotiations since 1976, when Ford Motor Co. plants were shut down.

Flores said the automaker is disappointed in the UAW's decision to call a national strike.

“The bargaining involves complex, difficult issues that affect the job security of our U.S. work force and the long-term viability of the company. We remain fully committed to working with the UAW to develop solutions together to address the competitive challenges facing GM,” Flores said.

Included in the negotiations was a groundbreaking provision establishing a UAW-managed trust that would administer GM's retiree health care obligations. GM pushed hard for the trust - known as a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association, or VEBA - so it could move $51 billion in unfunded retiree health costs off its books. GM has nearly 339,000 retirees and surviving spouses.

- Daily News reporter Burton Speakman contributed to this article.