BOEING Co is scheduled to begin the final push of contract talks with its largest union amid pressure to avert a strike that would cause further delays in the plane maker's 787 Dreamliner program.

Bank of America Securities analyst Harry Nourse sets odds of a strike at 70 percent, while Alex Hamilton of Jesup & Lamont Securities puts the chance at 60 percent.

Boeing's contract with 27,000 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists expires on September 3, Bloomberg News reported.

The union says Boeing's US$10.7 billion in profits since 2004 justify demands for better pay and benefits, and Boeing's fortunes have improved since the start of talks in May.

The 787 is meeting a revised production schedule after the Pentagon gave Boeing a second chance at a US$35-billion tanker contract, and fuel prices that have crippled airline customers have dropped more than 25 percent in a month.

"If we can't make any gains in the good times, then when would we ever have the leverage to do that?" Thomas Wroblewski, president of Seattle's IAM District 751, said in an interview.

'Minor issues'

The sides began talks on May 9, with committees meeting three times a week on non-economic matters. Starting today they cloister themselves into a SeaTac, Washington, hotel to try to work out financial terms before the contract expires.

Boeing and the union had already made "significant progress," spokesman Tim Healy said. Union spokeswoman Connie Kelliher said only "minor" issues, such as layoff-recall rights, had been resolved.

The machinists covered by the contract - in Washington, Oregon and Kansas - make up about 17 percent of Boeing's 159,300 workers. The Seattle workers made an average of US$27 an hour, or about US$56,000 a year, as of August 2007.