Timken Co. will get to spend $225 million to expand its Faircrest steel mill.United Steelworkers Local 1123 Golden Lodge in Canton overwhelmingly approved a new five-year contract by a vote of 1,520-260, according to a posting at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday on the union’s website.Union members in January had strongly rejected the company’s first contract offer, an outcome that put the mill expansion in jeopardy.Joe Hoagland, president of Local 1123, said it might take him another day or two to get a better handle on why so many of the local’s 2,300 members reversed their votes.The new pact retains a $5,000 retirement bonus that the rejected version would have eliminated, Hoagland said, and “that had been a hang-up for some members.”He said the new contract also changes a two-tier wage and benefits system put in place under the current contract. Under newly revised language, new hires will be paid the same as senior Steelworkers after two years instead of three under the current pact.“You can make the assumption,” Hoagland said, that union members also were thinking about the implications for the Faircrest steel mill if they voted down the contract.Timken issued a statement Tuesday night saying it is going to proceed with the Faircrest expansion. The company said this will be the largest investment in the mill since it opened in 1985.“This is a good day for our customers around the world, for our company and for the local community,” Salvatore J. Miraglia Jr., Timken president — steel group, said in a statement. “We’ve received great support for our steel expansion from state and local officials and suppliers, and now our employees have put the last element in place to make this project a go.”The new contract “establishes work force stability through project construction and startup in 2014,” the company said. The contract, which expires in September 2017, covers four facilities in Stark County.The project calls for a new ladle refiner and large-bloom continuous caster and is expected to increase Faircrest capacity by 25 percent as well as provide a wider range of large-diameter bars, the company said.Timken, a maker of global bearings and specialty steel, had warned the Steelworkers this was a last-chance opportunity to vote on a contract that would allow the Faircrest project to happen. The company said it needed a stable work force to expand and restart the Faircrest plant and asked to open bargaining early.The company said the energy industry in large part was driving increased demand for its steel for use in shale oil and gas drilling and development.The Steelworkers, who have been working under a five-year contract that was to run through September 2013, started voting at 6:30 a.m. at Mayfield Senior Center, on 13th Street in Canton, and ended 12 hours later.In January, they voted 917-608 against the first tentative agreement. Union officials at the time said members told them they rejected the contract because it retained a two-tier wage and benefits package and eliminated the $5,000 retirement bonus.The union and company subsequently resumed bargaining and on Feb. 7 announced a new tentative agreement had been reached.Timken previously said the new proposed contract had only minor changes from the one the union turned down in January; union officials said the revised contract had enough changes to merit taking it back to the membership for a vote.Timken said the tentative agreement provided:• Annual increases to permanent base wages plus cost-of-living increases.• Increases in variable pay and incentive pay.• Improvements in health and wellness plans.• Increases in pension benefits.• Changes to the wage escalation rate for new employees.Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.