DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers has dropped its adversarial stance with Detroit automakers and suppliers in favor of a more cooperative approach to saving union jobs, a senior UAW official Wednesday.

Bob King, the UAW's vice president for organizing, said the union has dramatically changed its relationship with employers because of the dire need to preserve manufacturing jobs in the United States.

"We have made a conscious choice to put aside the adversarial approach," King told an automotive conference in Detroit. "We believe adversarial relationships drive manufacturing jobs out of this country."

With Detroit's Big Three automakers struggling with soaring health care and material costs, the UAW can ill afford to wage war over downsizing at General Motors Corp. or Ford Motor Co., King said.

"We are committed to change, and we are changing," King told the attendees at the event, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. "It's not easy, but we're doing it."

The UAW's ranks have dwindled in recent years as U.S. manufacturing jobs have moved overseas to lower-wage countries.

The union's latest financial report said its membership declined 10.5 percent last year to 557,099 people -- the lowest since World War II.

With GM and Ford seeking to shed a combined 60,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs in coming years, the UAW has tried to negotiate "accelerated attrition" programs rather than fight inevitable job cuts.

"We have taken the high-road approach where we work together to reverse this trend," King said.

Last month, the union agreed to a massive buyout program with GM and its biggest supplier -- bankrupt Delphi Corp. -- that covers more than 130,000 unionized workers.

The buyout program offers UAW members packages worth $35,000 to $140,000 to either retire early or sever ties with GM or Delphi.

King declined to answer direct questions about Delphi, which has asked a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to void its contracts with 24,000 UAW members and another 8,000 unionized workers.

But in recent days, GM executives have said they are hopeful that Delphi's restructuring can be accomplished without a strike.

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner said in an April 4 interview that the UAW, led by President Ron Gettelfinger, has shown a willingness to work with the Big Three rather than fight them.

"I think Ron and the UAW have shown themselves to be very knowledgeable about the state of the industry and the competitive environment and the needs of their members," Wagoner told The Detroit News.

King noted that the UAW has struck several agreements with major parts suppliers that relax union work rules and job classifications in factories to improve productivity.

"The UAW is acting differently," said King, a UAW vice president since 1998. "That is not the public perception but that is a fact and that is the truth."

Last year's historic deal between GM and the UAW to cut health care costs -- including assessing first-ever health care fees on UAW retirees -- was a turning point in the relationship between the union and the Big Three.

With GM and Ford losing billions of dollars in North America, the UAW is committed to helping the companies lower their costs to compete more effectively with foreign rivals.

"There are no sacred cows in terms of old practices and old strategies," King said.

"We have made a conscious choice to put aside the adversarial approach," King told an automotive conference in Detroit. "We believe adversarial relationships drive manufacturing jobs out of this country."

"We believe adversarial relationships drive manufacturing jobs out of this country."