RIDLEY PARK, Pa. (AP) -- Nearly 1,500 employees of Boeing's suburban Philadelphia plant have voted to go on strike early Saturday unless the company improves on a contract offer made Sunday.þþAbout 98 percent of the membership of United Aerospace Workers Local 1069 voted in favor of a strike, local President John DiFrancisco said Tuesday. He said the union offered to negotiate further but received no response from Boeing.þþMadelyn Bush, a Boeing spokeswoman, said no talks were scheduled. Bush didn't rule out further negotiations, but said a contract the company proposed on Sunday was ``our best and final offer.''þþThe Aerospace Workers' contract expired Sept. 1, and an automatic cooling-off period expires at midnight Friday. The union is prepared to strike at 12:01 a.m. Saturday unless a new offer is made, DiFrancisco said.þþThough a few security guards and other employees would be in the plant during the weekend, most of the plant's 4,900 employees wouldn't normally return until Monday, Bush said.þþDiFrancisco said the two sides differ over pay, medical coverage and seniority issues.þþThe union seeks a better pay package than the company's offer of $2,000-a-year lump sum payments in the first two years followed by a 2 percent raise in the third year, he said.þþHe said the union sought 100-percent coverage of medical costs, while the company first proposed to cover 80 percent and refused to increase that to more than 90 percent.þþDiFrancisco wouldn't comment on details of seniority issues separating the two sides.þþHe also wouldn't comment on differences between the offer to the Aerospace Workers and an offer to the machinists' union, Boeing's largest, which represents about 25,000 employees mostly on the West Coast, except to say, ``Their offer, as far as the medical coverage, is far worse than ours.''þþThe machinists are scheduled to vote Thursday on their proposal. Bush also declined to discuss similarities or differences, commenting only, ``They are separate.''þþþ
Source: NY Times
