Detroit: The striking United Auto Workers union has agreed to a contract with General Motors Corp, ending a national strike by auto 73,000 workers on account of a deal that includes a groundbreaking health-care trust fund. (See: General Motors workers strike work)

The tentative agreement includes a memorandum of understanding to establish an independent retiree health care trust, as well as other changes to the national agreement.

Addressing a news conference at the Union''s Detroit headquarters, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said that production at GM facilities would resume and the process of ratification of the agreement by GM workers would begin this week, adding that the union feels very confident that the agreement will go through, referring to the tentative four-year agreement.

The approval for the agreement will have to come from majority of the GM workers who had struck work on Monday, in the first nationwide strike against GM since 1970. Gettelfinger had led the workers out saying GM had not met the union''s demands for guarantees on job security.

GM said in a statement that the deal would be subject court approval, and that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would conduct a review of its accounting treatment of the new health-care trust fund.

According to Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM, the agreement was reached after one of the most complex and difficult bargaining sessions in the history of the GM/UAW relationship.

The company said the national agreement would allow GM to significantly improve its manufacturing competitiveness and retain a strong production presence in the United States.

According to a company spokeswoman, details of the agreement would emerge only after it is presented to UAW workers for ratification.

However, Gettelfinger said that the agreement includes a landmark health-care deal, under which responsibility for retiree health care would shift to a new UAW-aligned trust fund, known as a voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA. He added that the union expected the health-care trust, which GM would establish, to provide steady funding for another 80 years.