Striking Hawaiian Electric Co. workers began voting today on a tentative contract agreement reached two days ago.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers Local 1260 are casting ballots today on Maui, Lanai and Molokai, tomorrow on the Big Island and Friday on Oahu. The roughly 1,300 unionized workers will remain off the job without pay until there is a resolution of the labor dispute.

It is the second tentative agreement in five weeks between union negotiators and HECO officials. The first deal reached on Jan. 31 was voted down by union members on Feb. 18. The workers went walked off the job Friday afternoon.

Neither IBEW nor HECO officials would comment on details of the tentative agreement.

The strike is the first against Hawaiian Electric since 1973, according to the Center for Labor Education & Research University of Hawaii, West Oahu. Some 1,100 members of Local 1260 struck at that time over pensions, wages, fringe benefits, and subcontracting.