SEATTLE -- A note of optimism in contract talks covering about 21,000 Boeing Co. white-collar workers may be fading.

Leaders of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace said late Wednesday that a settlement could be only a day away -- but there were no talks on Thursday.

Unresolved issues include wages and other economic provisions, as well as whether about 100 engineers in Ogden, Utah, will be covered by the contract.

Boeing spokesman Tim Healy says it's too early to say that a snag has developed.

However, SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth says the union's governing council will talk late Thursday about asking the membership to authorize a strike.

The company is working to present a final offer by the end of the week, but "it's all subject to the negotiations," Fincutter said. "We're not up against a strict deadline." SPEEA's two contracts expire Dec. 1 but can be extended by union leaders. The union represents nearly 20,000 engineers, scientists, computer operators, manual writers and other employees in and around Seattle and about 550 in Oregon, Utah and California. A strike would not likely begin before early December at the soonest.

Training for picket captains is set to begin next Tuesday, according to SPEEA's Web site, which also highlighted previously posted strike advice, preparations and contingencies - including 8 pages of instructions and color photographs on how to make a burn barrel.

In the last month "we've ramped up" strike planning, Dugovich said.

No picket signs have been printed, a step that will be taken only if a walkout is scheduled by union leaders following a vote by SPEEA members to authorize a strike, Dugovich said.

Both sides want to avoid another strike following an eight-week Machinists union walkout that ended Nov. 2 after shutting down Boeing's commercial aircraft assembly plants, cutting revenue by more than $100 million a day, forcing subcontractors around the world to lay off workers and costing strikers an average of more than $7,000.

A SPEEA strike would be the sixth against Boeing in the Seattle area in two decades, following earlier walkouts of 28 days in 2005, 69 days in 1995 and 48 days in 1989, all by the Machinists, and 40 days in 2000 by the engineers union.