With all the submarine construction work coming into Electric Boat now and in the future, the president of the Metal Trades Council said he thought the union would have been able to come away with a better contract for its members in the latest round of negotiations.

"We went in expecting a better package than what it ended up as," MTC president Ken DelaCruz said by phone Monday afternoon.

After negotiating for six weeks, the company and the union reached a tentative agreement on a new, four-year contract late last Friday, the same day the union's current contract expired.

The 2,800-plus members of the union, which represents boilermakers, office and professional employees, pipefitters, machinists, Teamsters, laborers, electricians and painters, will vote on Oct. 8 whether to approve the agreement.

DelaCruz said the new contract includes 3 percent raises each year over the next four years, and the monthly pension for eligible union members will grow from $59 to $63 during that same period.

"Compared to the last couple of contracts, this is a little lean," he said.

In an announcement Saturday announcing the tentative agreement, the company and union said their bargaining committees "engaged in interest-based bargaining to find common areas of interest."

"Both committees agreed at the beginning of negotiations to focus on issues that would positively impact employees' quality of life," they stated.

EB spokeswoman Liz Power said by email Monday that she could not comment further on the agreement until after the union members vote.

The company is currently preparing to build two different classes of submarines at the same time, a longer version of the Virginia-class attack submarines as well as a new Columbia class of ballistic missile submarines.

To carry out this work, the company is embarking on an $850 million building expansion and is expecting to double its production workforce on the Groton waterfront.

Given all this, DelaCruz said, members were hoping for a better deal. On top of that, the fact that company executives such as Phebe Novakovic, CEO of General Dynamics, EB's parent company, who reportedly earns $20.7 million in compensation, including stock awards and other incentives, are paid such high salaries "infuriates people," he said.

The union will hold meetings with its members at 1 and 3 p.m. Wednesday at the City of Groton Municipal Building to answer any questions ahead of next week's vote.

In 2014, EB and the MTC agreed to a 65-month contract that included raises, a pension increase for current employees and a voluntary severance package.

j.bergman@theday.com