Union OKs settlement for Entergy's Pilgrim reactor

BOSTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp (ETR.N) and unionized workers at the Pilgrim nuclear power station in southeastern Massachusetts reached agreement on a new contract on Thursday evening, reducing the possibility of a strike.

Union members at the plant were scheduled to vote on the contract on Friday, said David Leonardi, a union spokesman.

"This was a victory for the 254 hardworking men and women who run the Pilgrim nuclear power plant," said Gary Sullivan, president of the Utility Workers Union Local 369, citing unspecified wage increases agreed by Entergy.

The old contract expires at midnight on Thursday.

The union had petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to shut the plant if work stoppage took place. But a spokesman at the federal agency had said this week that the commission has not shut a plant due to a strike.

The NRC would have sent additional personnel to Pilgrim to inspect the site and ensure safe operation, he said.

Entergy, the second-biggest U.S. nuclear power company, operates 10 nuclear plants across the country including the 685-megawatt, 36-year-old Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, a town about 40 miles southeast of Boston.

Pilgrim, capable of generating power for almost 700,000 homes, has been here before.

Four years ago, a last-minute settlement averted a strike and in 1986 workers did go on strike for about two weeks. The reactor, however, was not operating then due to reasons not related to the strike.

Entergy said in November it wanted to create a separate publicly traded company to operate its non-utility nuclear rectors, including Pilgrim. The company hopes to complete the spin-off in the third quarter of 2008.

Entergy, based in New Orleans, owns and operates about 30,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes power to 2.7 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. (Reporting by Jason Szep in Boston with additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Braden Reddall)