By Doug Cunningham

The Teamsters and United Parcel Service have reached a tentative deal on a new five-year labor contract. The agreement includes increased wages and pensions. It comes 11 months before the old contract is set to expire and covers about 240,000 full and part-time UPS Teamsters workers.

According to the Teamsters, the new contract includes a $9 per hour per worker raise in wages and benefits over the life of the five-year contract.

What did UPS get? For once thing, the company is allowed to pull some UPS workers out of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund and put them into a new single-employer plan jointly operated with the Teamsters. In return, UPS will pay $6.1 billion into the Central States' plan. About 43,000 workers will be transferred into the new pension plan by the end of December.

Teamsters President, James Hoffa, wanted to get a deal done before pension law changes he says would adversely affect Teamsters members take effect in January.

Not many other details of the tentative agreement have been released, pending a ratification vote of Teamsters UPS workers.