The all-important 2007 auto talks heated up significantly over Labor Day Weekend. Thousands of rank-and-file workers and unions are struggling as much as trying to celebrate during Detroit’s Big Three automakers intense competition over the summer to be picked as the lead company to negotiate a pattern-setting agreement with the United Auto Workers.

With the current four-year contracts set to expire Sept. 14, the clock is ticking on whether GM, Ford or Chrysler will gain the inside track on setting the agenda for a new labor pact with the their specific competitive needs. Since July, the talks have been conducted under heavy secrecy at GM, Ford and Chrysler. Still, insiders say all three companies have pressed their cases to be designated as the lead company.

Over the past few years, UAW workers have suffered from nearly 100,000 job cuts, numerous plant closing and threats to slice workers and retirees health care cost. Yet, the Big Three bargaining goals are still to cut hourly labor costs — wages, benefits, pensions and retiree health care.

While the Big Three plans to cut workers labor costs to compete with top rival Toyota, auto industry expert like Walter McManus from University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute has advocated for years that Detroit’s “overdependence on fuel-inefficient SUVs and pickup trucks have accelerated their financial freefall.” The findings of his reports have proven in sharp detail that Detroit automakers’ long-term vulnerability is the shortcomings of their overall fleet.

With so much riding this year for workers, the most obviously question in all of these talks is which company can get the UAW to agree to slash costs in exchange for preserving jobs for the future? If preserving jobs is the UAW’s chief goal, the Big Three are just as committed to dramatically cutting costs.

GM and Ford have already made economic offers to the union that would set up health care trusts that the UAW would administer for its active members and retirees. GM, in particular, is determined to remove tens of billions of dollars in future health care costs from its balance sheet.

Chrysler is seeking a so-called voluntary employee benefit association to handle health care for its union workers and retirees, according to people close to the company.

In 2005, GM and the union reached an unprecedented agreement to transfer some health care costs from the company to workers. UAW workers at GM approved the deal, but a similar agreement at Ford passed by a very narrow margin.

Either way, plant-level UAW locals are being told by national union leaders to get prepared for negotiations results. There has even been talk from each of the companies that strike authorization votes need to be completed by Labor Day weekend, which is common practice during labor talks and a largely symbolic show of support by members for their negotiating team.

Whichever company the UAW chooses to take on first, we can only hope that the trade offs between workers and the Big Three is in the interest of supporting workers instead of the pockets of the auto companies.