Nearly 600 machinists voted over the weekend to accept a new offer from United Launch Alliance and end a two-week strike against the company's large rocket assembly plant in Decatur.
The strike, which also affected ULA operations in California and Cape Canaveral, Fla., brought workers protections against subcontracting and new work travel rules, according to the machinist union.
ULA workers in California and Alabama build the company's Atlas and Delta rockets used to lift government and commercial satellites into space. Machinists in Florida support rocket launches. The new agreement will protect all of that work for the next four years.
"Although monetary concerns were of much less significance to this group of workers in deciding to strike," the union said, "many are encouraged that the machinists have been able to negotiate a four-year agreement with a 3 percent general wage increase in the last year."
Reports say the primary issue in the negotiations was travel. Teams of machinists often move between California, Decatur and Florida to support launches and could be away from home for up to 30 days. The new contract provides a minimum of 14 days between deployments, reports said.