Late Friday night, Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) reached a tentative agreement with the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 555, which represents 7,780 ground workers, including those employed in operations, on ramps, as well as freight workers. The deal comes after more than 13 months of negotiations.

The tentative deal, which has yet to be voted on by all TWU members, would run for three years, through June 30, 2011 (the current contract opened for changes on June 30 of last year).

It was less than 3 weeks ago when Alex Rodriguez decided that the middle of World Series Game 4 was the opportune time to announce he was ditching the Yankees through a clause in his contract. At the time, Howard Stern sidekick (and lifelong Yankees fanatic) Artie Lange quipped: "Don't let the free-agency door hit you on the way out" (I'm paraphrasing to keep it clean, folks).

In the wake of this stunt, our own Georges Yared referred to A-Rod as a "crybaby extraordinaire" and a "selfish, self-centered you-know-what." Georges also noted that, "The attempt to upstage the Red Sox and Rockies should not be forgiven nor forgotten by the baseball brethren." Indeed, it was a classless move, one likely perpetrated by A-Rod's agent, but certainly given the green light by the third baseman himself.

And yet, here it is mid-November, and hijo pródigo A-Rod and the Yanks are back at the table. It's all sorts of amusing, really. This morning, it hit newswires that negotiations mediated by Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) officials have resulted in a new contract for the clutch player who isn't. Reportedly, A-Rod wanted to restart negotiations with the team, but chose to use a third party (Goldman representatives) instead of his agent, Scott Boras.

Ford (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) have started telling the UAW that they are willing to move much of their production outside the U.S. if they cannot get very large concessions on employee costs.

According to The Observer in the UK, if negotiations do not go well, "Ford and GM negotiators have said the companies will have no choice but to move their North American operations to countries in Latin America and Asia."

Both car companies have been trying to set up a fund, run by the UAW, to handle most of the pension and health benefits for the UAW. This would have to be funded with as much as $60 billion from the two companies, but would take the liabilities for these costs off of their balance sheets.

But, the UAW may want a level of funding for this pool that is greater than the car companies are willing to give. Or, the UAW may want to fight for a higher number of jobs in the U.S. than GM and Ford feel they can handle. With falling vehicles sales and high costs, getting their North American operations profitable may be impossible no matter what the union gives.

All the UAW has to push back with is a strike. And, strike it may. If the UAW gives up what the car companies want in this round of negotiations, the union will cease to exist as the bargaining force that it has been for decades. The union may decide that it is better to risk dying while defending its workers that to be overrun without a struggle.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.