The union representing more than 5,000 workers at Shaw’s supermarkets in Rhode Island and Massachusetts yesterday morning reached a tentative five-year agreement with the company that was expected to be ratified by its members.

The agreement reached at 5:30 a.m. yesterday — 5½ hours after a midnight strike deadline — provides wage increases that union negotiators feel are “fair for the membership,” in addition to a health care plan that is “not so costly to members,” said Peter Derouen, political and legislative director for Local 791 of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

The tentative agreement also commits the company to continue paying into union members’ conventional, “defined-benefit” pension plan rather than freeze the plan and switch to a 401(k), plan, as Shaw’s had proposed, Derouen said.

“Basically, a lot of the proposals that the company was pushing we were able to fight off,” Derouen said.

He declined to release details of the agreement until the membership votes are tallied.

Union officials yesterday presented the tentative agreement to their membership and yesterday afternoon began to tally the vote. “Based on the feedback at these meetings,” Derouen said, “it’s going to get ratified.”

Shaw’s operates 12 stores in Rhode Island.

A contact agreement that covers the Shaw’s distribution center in Wells, Maine, was also expected to be ratified last night, Derouen said.

larditi@projo.com