It may not be a very Happy Halloween for employees at Chrysler LLC. Plans of that supposed merger between Chrysler and General Motors may commence as early as October 31st. Rumors state that GM wants to completely absorb Chrysler, merge similar vehicle lines (leaving Chrysler’s minivan segment, keeping around Jeep vehicle, and all but deleting Dodge out of existence) and worse.

We already reported that United Auto Workers would hate to see a merger like this go through – but now it seems Chrysler engineer workers, if taken under the GM wing, would have to take two-months off without pay and return in hopes that their job hasn’t been erased from anyone’s duty roster.

Well, Chrysler PR stated this no-pay mandatory vacation is not true, but it has to be scary as heck working at either auto maker these days, both for blue collars and white alike. Thanks to Automotive News & Jalopnik for the story.

When two corporations decide to become one – someone has to lose their head – and it’s usually the assembly line worker. With General Motors and Chrysler, the nation’s Number 1 & Number 3 auto maker going back and forth about mergers, UAW (United Auto Workers) reps are none too pleased…in fact, they absolutely oppose any such merger of two automotive giants.

The UAW is highly concerned that any merger would be a huge threat to the jobs of thousands of automotive workers on both sides, throughout the United States and Canada. One UAW representative called the potential merger “an absolute catastrophe.”

Rumor and speculation of such a partnership has been billowing out of Detroit (and all over automotive blogs) since last Friday. According to both sides, each company is seeking outside financial prospects. As for now, it seems any such talks are on hold, presumably because of the world financial crisis. Sure, it has absolutely nothing to do with the story leaking out.

Industry analysts predict severe job cuts, especially if redundant models (pickups or mid size sedans) that were produced on separate Canada or US assembly lines were to be slashed. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said “I personally would not want to see anything that would result in a consolidation that would mean the elimination of additional jobs, but we’ve not had any official discussions at all with any of the companies.”

Canadian Auto Workers President Ken Lewenza said this week; “You’d have to be worried, if a merger did take place, about the consolidation of product lines, we would be very much concerned about the job security of our members. On the surface, it’s not something we would support.”

GM is not in any position to buy out Chrysler, or so it seems. The company is losing $1 Billion dollars almost every time Bob Lutz appears on TV. A merger would only increase GM’s problems and that Chrysler has nothing that GM needs. We will have to wait and see, once stocks stop hemorrhaging, if any such automotive merger will go through.

Update -October 16th 2008 – General Motors reported that one plan they had while in talks with Chrysler/Cerberus was to absorb the company, phase out similar models and eventually demolish the Chrysler and Dodge tags all together. GM would keep Jeep and Chrysler’s minivan line (because let’s be honest, how many Uplanders do you see going around?) – GM would gain Chrysler’s $11 billion in cash and remove a competitor who accounts for 1.5 million units per year.

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Over this past weekend news leaked that General Motors was in talks with Chrysler parent company Cerberus Capital Management LP about a possible merger. And if the merger won’t happen, GM may just go ahead and buy Chrysler all out.

Talks of a merger unofficially began last month, but Chrysler officials deny any such buy outs are open for discussion. Citing a rebuttal from Cerberus, Chrysler is not in the practice of making their potential business matters public. They claim to be exploring many “global partners” in light of hard financial times, both in the stock market and throughout the automotive industry.

One theory claims that if not for the recent financial-apocalypse this supposed merger might have gone through. Parent company Cerberus would have ended up owning a major chunk of the combined ChrysGM-hybrid, but now would not be sole proprietor.

Negotiations between the 100 year old General Motors and the 83 year old Chrysler may restart if the stock market can bring itself back up. Needless to say a team-up between these automotive giants would be one of the largest in the industry.

With the possible combination of CDJ and all GM makes, would we one day drive past our local Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Chevrolet-Buick-Pontiac-Cadillac-GMC-HUMMER dealership? All those car sales persons are going to have to learn a lot more about makes and models. Can we call the new company ChrysGMuickPontiHUMCHevillacDodgJeep?