Chrysler LLC's contract with the United Auto Workers will be tested at the company's biggest manufacturing centers today and Wednesday.

About a third of Chrysler's UAW members are scheduled to vote in Kokomo, Ind., today and suburban Detroit on Wednesday. Leaders at two of the plants have been vocal opponents.

The vote tightened Monday, as two sites with 4,600 employees voted more than three-to-one in favor, while one plant with 2,200 workers rejected it by a smaller margin. The New York Times said its own count, confirmed by someone with direct knowledge of the results, showed 53 percent of voting workers to date have approved.

''The vote reflects how tough and troubling the overall situation is to the autoworkers,'' said Harley Shaiken, a labor relations professor at the University of California-Berkeley. ''We won't know until the last local votes.''

Four of six locals that have turned down the deal represent workers at auto-assembly plants, according to union offi cials and media reports. At least nine locals have approved. Ratification requires a majority of voting members, not the locals themselves.

Locals snubbing the contract so far represent about 11,160 workers, according to a Bloomberg News tally; those approving have about 9,210. Chrysler has 45,000 UAW workers; the number of eligible voters who are casting ballots isn't clear.

The union finishes voting on the four-year deal this week.

Auto-assembly workers are rejecting the contract because UAW President Ron Gettelfinger wasn't able to secure work for Chrysler plants as far into the future as he did for General Motors Corp. factories last month, said Bill Parker, chief of the UAW committee that negotiated the Chrysler contract and an opponent of the deal.

Should the ratification vote fail, union officials said Gettelfinger will have to try to get more product guarantees from Chrysler.

But product guarantees at U.S. plants might be impractical, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The GM and Chrysler agreements create a union fund for retiree health care, instead of imposing this responsibility solely on management. The accord also will pay new workers about half as much as the current work force.

Chrysler, of Auburn Hills, Mich., plans new investments totaling $15 billion for 55 of its 59 UAW-represented facilities during the next four years, spokesman Mike Aberlich said.