BOEING Co's Machinist union will vote on a tentative four-year labor pact on Saturday, a process that could end an eight-week strike against the airplane maker.

The strike, now in its 53rd day, has shut Boeing's commercial jet factories, cut into profits and delayed airplane deliveries.

Boeing spokesman Tim Healy on Tuesday said company and union officials would meet soon to set a schedule for workers to return to their jobs if the contract is ratified. Some could be back at work as early as Sunday night, he said. Workers were given two weeks to report after the end of the last strike in 2005, but Healy said the company feels "that's probably too long."

As for the timing of the ratification vote, "that's their process," he said. "We want to get folks back to work as soon as we can."

It remains unclear how long it would take Boeing's commercial aircraft business to return to pre-strike production levels. Boeing representatives said the company will conduct an assessment once work resumes.

Fourth strike

The union, representing 27,000 production workers in Washington state, Oregon and Kansas, went on strike on September 6 after rejecting a final contract offer by the company, with major sticking points being job security and health benefits.

The strike is the union's fourth against Boeing in two decades and has cost the Chicago-based airplane maker an estimated US$100 million a day in deferred revenue and pushed back scheduled deliveries of its commercial airplanes, including its long-awaited and highly-anticipated 787 jetliner.

Boeing's chief financial officer, James Bell, said in a conference call last week that the company should be able to resume pre-strike production within two months.

"Hopefully we can do it in a lot less time," Bell said.

Boeing said its backlog of plane orders, meanwhile, was worth a record US$349 billion, up from US$346 billion at the end of the previous quarter.