Boeing Workers Approve 4-Year Contract Extension

By Hope Yen

SEATTLE (AP) -- Applause and cheers rang out after Unionized Boeing Machinists voted overwhelmingly to approve a four-year contract extension - a deal that grants the company labor peace and likely ends a federal complaint that had become a hot topic for Republican presidential candidates.

Boeing promised that if workers approved the pact, the company would build the new version of the popular 737 in the Puget Sound region, while the Machinists said they'd drop their allegations that Boeing opened a nonunion assembly plant in South Carolina in retaliation for previous strike.