WORKERS at Boeing scored a huge success today after they voted to accept a new contract offer.

The vote brings to an end a strike that has lasted more than seven weeks.

Leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district in Seattle said that 59 per cent of members who cast ballots agreed to approve the company’s fourth formal offer and the third put to a vote. 

The deal includes a 38 per cent wage increase over four years, and ratification and productivity bonuses.

The average annual pay of Boeing machinists is currently $75,608 (£57,800) and eventually will rise to $119,309 (£91,200) under the new contract, according to the company. 

The union said that the compounded value of the promised pay raise would amount to an increase of more than 43 per cent over the life of the agreement.

But the union did not manage to win the restoration of a company pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.

The contract’s ratification cleared the way for Boeing to restart Pacific Northwest assembly lines that have been closed for 53 days, costing the company $50 million a day (£38 million).

“It’s time for us to come together. This is a victory,” IAM District 751 president Jon Holden told members while announcing the tally late on Monday. “You stood strong and you stood tall and you won.”

But reactions were mixed even among union members who voted to accept the contract.

Although she voted “yes,” Seattle-based calibration specialist Eep Bolano said that the outcome was “most certainly not a victory.” 

She said she and her fellow workers made a wise but infuriating choice to accept the offer.

“We were threatened by a company that was crippled, dying, bleeding on the ground, and us as one of the biggest unions in the country couldn’t even extract two-thirds of our demands from them. This is humiliating,” she said.

For other workers like William Gardiner, a lab lead in calibration services, the revised offer was a cause for celebration.

He said: “I’m extremely pumped over this vote.

“We didn’t fix everything — that’s OK. Overall, it’s a very positive contract.”

Boeing chief executive officer Kelly Ortberg said in a message to employees: “While the past few months have been difficult for all of us, we are all part of the same team.

“We will only move forward by listening and working together. There is much work ahead to return to the excellence that made Boeing an iconic company.”