HOUSTON -- Attorneys negotiating severance payments for former Enron Corp. employees reached a tentative agreement Tuesday that could more than double the severance some of the laid-off workers already have received.

VIDEO Hear More On The Deal INTERACTIVES The End Of Enron What's The Future Of Enron? RELATED INFO. Background Of Sherron Watkins Text Of Ken Lay Letter Background On Enron, Government Probe Text Of Fifth Amendment Congressional Committees Investigating Background Of Kenneth Lay INTERNET LINKS Enron Corp. Securities and Exchange Commission Labor Department

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement to pay our former employees additional severance benefits," Enron spokesman Mark Palmer said. "We look forward to motioning the agreement in bankruptcy court so that it may be approved and those employees eligible for additional severance benefits may begin receiving those funds."

Under terms of the proposed agreement, former workers would get no more than $13,500, minus any payments they have already received, based on their salary and length of employment.

"The workers could not pay their house notes, could not pay their medical bills. They were in desperation," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and supporter of some of the laid-off Enron workers.

AFL-CIO attorneys said lawyers for the former employees, the creditors' committee and Enron continued Tuesday to circulate drafts of the written agreement they hoped to submit later this week to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, which must approve it.

"These workers had the courage to fight for their severance here in Houston, at the bankruptcy court in New York, and in the halls of Congress and in Washington," AFL-CIO spokeswoman Linda Chavez Thompson said.

Former employees who decide to reject the severance package to preserve possible future legal action would receive no additional payment, AFL-CIO attorneys said.

According to the union, the negotiations resulted in an additional $29 million in severance for the more than 4,500 people who lost their jobs when the former energy giant collapsed last year amid a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into questionable accounting practices.

"By accepting this plan, eligible former employees will receive additional severance pay," said Richard Rathvon, co-chairman of the Enron Employment-Related Issues Committee, which represented current and former Enron workers in the company's bankruptcy case. "Without this plan, former employees might never have seen one single penny more in severance pay if the litigation was unsuccessful."

Peterson said the final details of the agreement were accepted Tuesday morning, culminating discussions that began in February.

A hearing will take place within 10 days of the plan's filing in bankruptcy court, said union representatives who announced the agreement outside a Houston church across the street from Enron's headquarters.

"When we started this there were a lot of folks who said we could never possibly prevail," Peterson said. "I am confident when people see the details they are going to think this is a really good thing."

Peterson said the agreement will result in two payments to former Enron employees who qualify. The first payment of $2,000 could be to employees within 30 days of the court's approval, he said.

"We knew with perseverance ... we could get something done," Peterson said. "I don't think there was ever any question that these workers need this money. It was getting Enron and the creditors' committee to come around."

For more information, log onto www.employeecommittee.com.