New York - The machinists at Boeing Co ended a 58-day strike that idled the aircraft maker's factories and cut into its earnings as they ratified a contract with increased wages and pension payments.

The four-year contract, longer than the traditional three-year agreements, was approved by 74 per cent of union voters Saturday, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said.

The first of the 27,000 machinists who had walked off the job are to return Sunday, but it was expected that it would take weeks or months to clear Boeing's backlog of orders.

Each day of the strike, which began September 6, cost Boeing about 100 million dollars per day in lost revenues and penalties for delayed shipments, and in October, the aerospace giant said its third-quarter net income fell 38 per cent year-on-year to 695 million dollars because of the costs of the strike.

The walkout was also expected to bring further delays to the production of Boeing's new 787, or Dreamliner, which was already 15 months behind schedule because of a redesign and parts shortages.

The contract approved by the union includes 15-per-cent increases in wages over four years, an immediate 16-per-cent pension increase and bonuses of at least 8,000 dollars over the life of the contract, Chicago-based Boeing said. Workers would also not have to pay more for health care as Boeing had wanted. (dpa)