SEATTLE — On picket lines in Seattle and production lines in Pittsburgh, union workers are showing no fear in demanding a hefty chunk of the profits from Boeing and United States Steel, whose businesses have soared above the more widespread economic downdrafts in other sectors.

On Tuesday, the United Steelworkers union ratified a four-year contract their chief negotiator, Tom Conway, touted as the best in the nation's steel industry in 30 years. The deal provides a $6,000 cash payment, a retroactive $1 an hour pay increase to Sept. 1, and 4 percent wage increases in each of the next three years, among other things.

And on Saturday, the Machinists union shut down Boeing's lucrative aircraft assembly plants after rejecting a three-year contract offer containing bonuses averaging $6,400, pay raises averaging 11 percent, pension increases and a 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment — $34,000 in average pay and benefit gains, by company estimates.

Moreover, the strike vote was a whopping 87 percent, compared with a 78 percent strike vote that preceded a 69-day walkout at Boeing in 1995, when the Machinists represented even more workers at the company.

Financial analysts and some within labor's ranks question whether demands for more money across the board and stronger job security are reasonable or realistic, but Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and chief negotiator Mark Blondin say Boeing can well afford it.

Boeing reported $4.1 billion in profit last year, an 84 percent increase over 2006, and has about a seven-year order backlog, helped by strong exports.

A good deal for the Machinists — financially and in outsource-limiting provisions — will promote a rising tide to float other labor boats, Blondin and Buffenbarger said.

He said he hears plenty from other labor leaders about the rich deal the Machinists already have at Boeing, making an average of $27 an hour or about $56,000 a year before overtime and incentives, but added that in the strike "I've had nothing but encouragement from other unions."

Gains at Boeing could even "bleed over into to airlines," where the Machinists have been hard hit by mergers and the fiscal pinch of soaring fuel costs, Buffenbarger said.

Unlike the vast majority of U.S. unions, the Machinists hold a heavy hammer at Boeing. Because of the wide range of highly skilled and specialized positions they fill, the company cannot make airplanes without them or find enough available and qualified replacements.