GM and the UAW are at odds about picketing at the Spring Hill, Tennessee plant..

With the strike continuing to take a heavy toll on the company and the union, negotiators for General Motors Co. and the United Auto Workers continue to wrestle with key issues including health care and temporary workers.

The UAW also moved to clear up confusion about how the strike might end if and when a settlement is reached. “The UAW GM Council when they voted on the strike also voted that the strike will not end until the Council votes and agrees to end it. At that time the Council can set the date for ending a strike including if they so choose upon ratification,” Brian Rothenberg, the UAW’s director to communications said in an e-mail.

But the company and the union also continued to exchange barbs about GM’s decision to ask a judge in Maury County, Tennessee, for an injunction regarding the placement of UAW pickets outside an assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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The Spring Hill plant once housed GM’s Saturn Division, which was supposed to serve as a symbol of industrial cooperation between the company and the UAW. Saturn vanished during GM’s bankruptcy in 2008 and plant has now become a flashpoint in the tense standoff between the automaker and its principal union.

As many as nine UAW members have been arrested for blocking traffic into and out of the Spring Hill plant, according to news reports and social media posts.

UAW members picket while talks between GM and the union continue this week.

“Across the country, more than 48,000 UAW members, their families, friends, and neighbors are peacefully exercising their right to picket in support of the union’s strike for better wages, quality affordable health care, and job security. We are committed to conducting all strike-related activities safely, lawfully and we will continue to work with law enforcement as issues arise,” the UAW said in a statement over judge in Maury County issued the injunction that limited picketing around plant.

Union representatives were particularly miffed because Tennessee laws requires one side to notify the other about the request for an injunction. GM never bothered to notify the union and instead went looking for a judge to sign the order.

The action only served irritate UAW members and could make reaching any kind of settlement more difficult.

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For its part, GM insisted it had to get the injunction to protect its employees and its property.

“We recognize the right of our employees to engage in lawful protests during the strike, but the safety and security of the public and our employees are our highest priority. After dialogue failed to stop the incidents of harassment, violence and vandalism by a few people, we had to take necessary actions to protect everyone involved,” GM said in a statement.

At the bargaining table, the two sides have yet to come up with a formula that would meet the union’s demands to maintain health-care benefits and make temporary employees full-time. Approximately 7% of GM workers are now temps but GM is hoping to increase the percentage as prepares for the auto industry’s next recession.

GM and the UAW are reportedly far apart on a deal.

The company’s position is that GM already has moved away from its demands that workers pay more for health care, but it needs to offset the cost with lower wages paid temporary workers.

For striking members, the equation is also quite simple since they see GM’s record profits and insist the company can improve the status of the temporary workers, observers said.

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Meanwhile, Navistar announced it was laying off temporarily some 1,400 hourly workers at its plant in Springfield, Ohio, due to a parts shortage created by the strike at GM. The plant builds cutaway GM vans under a contract vans and Chevrolet badged medium-duty trucks.