Kansas City, Mo. ? Less than an hour after employees at Interstate Bakeries Corp. plants in six Midwestern states went on strike early Wednesday, negotiators reached agreement on a new three-year contract.

Kansas City-based Interstate is the nation’s largest bakery company, producing such well-known brands as Wonder Bread and Hostess and Dolly Madison snack products. The workers involved in the short-lived walkout are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union.

Robert Oakley, chief negotiator for the union, said the walkout beginning at midnight involved workers at plants in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio. Interstate’s Mark Dirkes, senior vice president for marketing, said the union represented about 3,000 of the company’s workers.

“Within probably about an hour following the deadline, we were able to reach agreement,” Oakley said. “We contacted all the locations and they either returned to work or will return at the beginning of the next shift.”

“It was short-lived and very effective,” Oakley said of the strike. “I haven’t seen one this short.”

Oakley said workers walked out at all the plants involved, but Dirkes said he was told that picket lines had gone up at three or four plants, and that there were others where production had not stopped.

“I don’t know how many actually walked out,” he said.

Oakley, an international vice president of the union based in Kensington, Md., said the only unresolved issue as the deadline approached involved health care costs. The union’s members have not had to make co-payments under their health insurance plan, and the company was proposing that they begin paying some of those costs.

Neither Oakley nor Dirkes would provide details on provisions in the agreement, which is a “pattern” for the 570 members of Kansas City-based Local 218 that would be applied to other locals representing Interstate employees, subject to further bargaining on local plant issues. Oakley said the union leadership was recommending ratification when the Local 218 members vote on Saturday.

“We think it is a fair settlement that will work for both parties,” Oakley said. “It is consistent with other settlements in the industry.”

Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers Union Local 218 celebrate in front of the Dolly Madison Plant in Emporia after the contract between the union and Interstate Bakeries Corp. was signed. Robert Oakley, chief negotiator for the union, said the walkout involved workers at plants in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio.