The union representing more than 5,000 workers at Shaw’s supermarkets in Rhode Island and Massachusetts reached agreement on a five-year contract early yesterday morning, and union members ratified it yesterday afternoon.

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 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. No vote totals were available last night.

Shaw’s operates 12 stores in Rhode Island and 26 in Southeastern Massachusetts, employing about 5,200 unionized workers in the area.

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