PORTLAND – The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram signed an agreement Friday with the newspaper’s press union.

Members of the Portland Printing and Graphic Communications Union, Local 22, agreed to a five-year contract that will run until the end of May 2004. It replaces an earlier contract that expired on May 29, 1999.

“I am pleased that we reached a new long-term agreement with this key group of employees,” Jean Eichenbaum, the paper’s general manager, said in a written statement. She described the contract as “fair and equitable.”

It will cover 24 employees who operate the press and plate-making equipment at the newspaper’s printing and distribution facility in South Portland.

The newspaper’s management has not resolved a contract dispute with the Portland Newspaper Guild, which has not had a contract in two years.

The newspapers are owned by The Seattle Times Co., whose Blethen Maine Newspapers division also owns the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and the weekly Coastal Journal in Bath.