Union executives who negotiated new labour contracts last year with the US automakers said they have discussed the idea with Ford and DaimlerChrysler. Officials at Ford declined to comment, while those at DaimlerChrysler said they haven't been contacted about the idea.

A section of the new Ford-UAW labour agreement from last year said the two will review offerings to "bring computers and Internet service to every UAW Ford family, including using a portion of Personal Development Assistance funds to assist UAW members with purchasing family personal computers."The UAW represents 101,000 hourly workers at Ford,including 23,500 at its Visteon parts unit, and 75,000 at DaimlerChrysler's US division. UAW officials did not say whether they had discussed the idea with General Motors Corp.. The Union represents 172,000 hourly workers at the world's largest automaker.GM spokesman Pat Morrissey said the automaker is exploring ways to better communicate with its employees using the Internet, including possibly providing links to GM's intranet.

"We're not sure what the best use of that is, but we're looking at a lot of different things on how we can improve connecting to our employees through the Internet because we know that's a critical trend," he said.Yokich, who trades online E-mails with his 13-year-old grandson, said having a laptop at home has made communications and other aspects of his job easier.

"It's a good communications instrument to tell their employees what's really going on," he said of the automakers.UAW Vice President Nate Gooden, who negotiates with DaimlerChrysler for the Union, said computers at all the employees' homes would allow for better communications and would be a natural link to the Union's National training centre.

Yokich, who will travel to Stuttgart, Germany, next week for a DaimlerChrysler supervisory board meeting, also said the retirement announcement last week made by the German-US automaker's co-chairman, Robert Eaton, was long expected.