Boeing, Union Reach Tentative Agreement to End Walkout : Labor: The pact, which comes after a week of intense negotiations, goes before the rank and file on Wednesday.

Boeing Co. and leaders of its striking machinists union reached a tentative agreement Monday to end a nine-week walkout that has slashed production at the world’s largest commercial airplane maker.

The agreement must be approved by the 32,500 members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in a vote Wednesday. The tentative pact came after almost a week of intense negotiations arranged by Boeing Chief Executive Frank Shrontz and machinists union President George Kourpias.

Union members, who account for about a third of Seattle-based Boeing’s work force, have already rejected two proposed three-year contracts, complaining that both fell short of demands for more job security and no increase in health-care costs.

The new agreement includes strengthened language on subcontracting for work now done by union workers, a key union concern. The union said that any worker affected by subcontracting would be reassigned or retrained for available work inside Boeing.

The pact would last 45 months, unlike most of the machinists’ previous contracts, which lasted three years, union spokeswoman Connie Kelliher said.

The new agreement includes a lump-sum payment of 10% of a worker’s annual pay in the first year and a lump-sum payment of 4.5% in the second year, the union said.

In the new contract, Boeing dropped its demand that workers pay a premium for medical care, the union said. Instead, workers would not pay a premium until the last 14 months of the contract, depending on whether medical costs have risen, Kelliher said. Further details were not immediately available.

If ratified, the agreement would end the union’s walkout, which has slashed production at the aircraft maker. Before the strike started, Boeing had expected to deliver 235 aircraft this year. Through the end of November, it had delivered 195, making the forecast almost impossible to meet.