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DETROIT — The United Auto Workers union is accusing General Motors of violating a national contract by using temporary workers instead of employing full-timers who were laid off from its factories.

DETROIT — General Motors will lay off 14,700 factory and white-collar workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles.

GM Cruise is running neck-and-neck with Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, to be first to bring fully autonomous cars to market. The two companies are considered the leaders in a crowded field, and San Francisco is the proving grounds to refine the technology.

Big fleets of robot taxis — with no backup drivers — from General Motors could hit the streets of San Francisco and other cities in less than two years, the company said Nov. 30.

General Motors Co. shot down speculation that it’ll spin off its business units working on self-driving vehicles and car-sharing, which one analyst has estimated could be worth as much as $30 billion.

General Motors announced Oct. 9 that it is buying Strobe, a Pasadena startup that makes lidar, a laser-based sensor that most autonomous vehicles use to see the world around them.

The Bendix Wingman Advanced collision mitigation system now is available for order as an option for Kenworth Truck Co.'s T270 and T370 medium-duty trucks, the truck maker said.

General Motors Co. reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as strong light-truck sales in the United States and stable operations in China produced a record $3.1 billion in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes.