Employees of the Le Journal de Québec newspaper locked out for more than 14 months overwhelmingly accepted a new job contract offer Wednesday.

Union officials representing workers at the Quebec City daily said 98 per cent of editorial employees and 85 per cent of press operators who turned out to vote on the offer Wednesday were in favour of the deal.

The five-year pact includes annual salary increases of 2.5 per cent, improved vacation for temporary employees and an increase in the work week to 37.5 hours from 32 hours, the CUPE-affiliated union said.

Sun Media Corp. and the union representing the140 locked-out employees reached the agreement-in-principle on a new contract after intensive negotiations last week.

Both sides hammered out a deal early Wednesday before the union revealed the new contract to employees at a Quebec City church in the afternoon.

The union recommended acceptance of the company's offer..

Sun Media Corp. locked out the workers April 22, 2007, over an impasse in negotiations.

Besides salary and work-week issues, battle lines were drawn over the company's desire to have journalists provide online content in various formats.

The two sides clashed over clauses in the contract that would have given the company more freedom to reassign people and give them new job descriptions.

Despite the labour dispute, Sun Media's parent company, Québecor Inc., continued to publish Le Journal de Québec.

The locked-out employees also published their own paper, MediaMatinQuébec, which they distributed for free, and encouraged readers to boycott Le Journal.