Machinists Vote to End 48-Day Boeing Walkout : Strike: The union said 81.4% approved the new three-year pact. Leaders said workers will return to the job Wednesday.

Machinists who stayed out 48 days on the picket line for a better offer from Boeing voted overwhelmingly Monday night to approve a three-year contract and return to work.

The pact that could become the standard for the aerospace industry was approved by 81.4%, the Machinists Union announced.

Strikers will return to work Wednesday morning, said Tom Baker, International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Lodge 751 president.

“They can do that with pride in themselves and in what they’ve done,” he said.

Union members voted in Seattle, near Wichita, Kan., and in Portland, Ore., on the agreement reached Sunday with the world’s biggest manufacturer of commercial jets.

The company’s second-longest strike virtually halted production, delaying deliveries to airlines at a time of growing passenger loads and rising concern over aging jets.

The Machinists Union represents about 43,300 workers in Seattle, 12,000 in Wichita, 1,700 in Portland and a few hundred more in scattered sites, including California, Hawaii, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and other states.

Reporters were barred from the meeting at the Kansas Coliseum north of Wichita. Dozens of people stayed only long enough to pick up a seven-page explanation of the offer.

There was no clear-cut sentiment among union members who left early.

“I voted to go back to work,” said Rodney Nobles of Wichita. “I think it’s a good contract. They gave us our lump-sum improvements.”

Galan Smith, 22, of Wichita, said he voted against the contract.

“We’re wanting a larger wage increase in the general wage,” he said. “We’ve been out long enough, we feel like they should make up for some of what we’ve gone through.”

Baker said the proposed contract substantially improves two earlier Boeing offers, including boosting the total dollar value.

Boeing officials said they were pleased with the pact.

According to a handout distributed at the Kansas Coliseum, the offer included four major improvements from the Oct. 3 proposal machinists overwhelmingly rejected before going on strike the next day:

--Lump-sum bonuses of 10% of gross pay the first year, 5% the second and 4% the third.

--A cost-of-living increase of 60 cents per hour, effective immediately, with quarterly increases thereafter.

--An increase in the cost-of-living adjustment base pay by 45 cents an hour to make up for a 1986 adjustment workers did not get.

--A cut in mandatory overtime to two consecutive weekends and 144 hours per quarter, with double-time pay after 160 hours, down from 200 mandatory hours of overtime per quarter and four consecutive weekends in the previous contract.

A settlement with Boeing machinists traditionally has set the pattern for other aerospace companies, especially Lockheed Corp. and McDonnell Douglas Corp., as well as for other unions at Boeing.

Union contracts between machinists at McDonnell Douglas in Torrance and Lockheed Corp. in Burbank expired in October, but negotiations have been extended. Those talks are separate from the Boeing negotiations, and the outcome of the Seattle talks had no direct effect.

Don Nakamoto, spokesman for Machinists District Lodge 727 in Burbank, acknowledged the Boeing developments have been closely watched.

“I’m sure it will have some impact,” Nakamoto said. “It’s hard to say what it will be but I think both parties will be taking a hard look to see what it means to our talks.”