PITTSBURGH | United Steelworkers and ArcelorMittal have reached a tentative, four-year labor agreement that if ratified will eliminate the possibility of a strike, a USW union official said.

The agreement, reached Saturday, follows the pattern set earlier this month by the USW's pact with U.S. Steel Corp, and comes just over two days prior to the expiration of the current contract at 11:59 p.m. Monday, said Jim Robinson, USW District 7 director.

If ratified by the 14,000 USW members who work at ArcelorMittal's 14 domestic facilities, the agreement will provide for a one-time $6,000 bonus per worker, a $1 her hour wage increase for the first year of the contract and a 4 percent wage increase for each of the following years, Robinson said. The agreement also provides a significant reduction in the cost of health care for union retirees, he said.

Health care co-payments would be reduced to $70 for each claim for those under 65 years of age, and to $35 for those who are Medicare eligible.

Tom Hargrove, the president of USW Local 1010 in East Chicago, said the tentative agreement is the best one's he's been part of.

"There's something in the agreement for everyone, retirees, actives and new employees," he said.

According to an e-mail from Hargrove to members of Local 1010, the tentative agreement also includes an increase in the company's pension contribution from $1.80 to $2.65 per hour, company contributions to a retiree fund for former employees of Acme, Bethlehem, Georgetown and LTV and increased profit sharing.

ArcelorMittal's USW employees will vote on the contract by mail-in ballot.

The locals will distribute information on the pact at their plant gates Tuesday, Hargrove said. Then there will be meetings scheduled where summaries will be available, he said.

The ratification process is expected to take about 30 days, according to an e-mailed statement from ArcelorMittal. The union and the steelmaker have an agreement in place to continue operations under the terms of the current agreement until the ratification process concludes, the statement said.

"We are pleased to have a new, tentative agreement with our partners at the USW," ArcelorMittal USA President and CEO Michael Rippey said in an e-mailed statement. "We believe that we have reached a positive outcome for all parties involved without disruption to our business operations."

The contract affects some 14,000 hourly production, maintenance, office and technical workers -- nearly 9,000 of whom are at its Indiana Harbor plants in East Chicago, Burns Harbor, New Carlisle and Riverdale, Ill. -- and tens of thousands of retirees.

ArcelorMittal also has domestic plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, West Virginia and Minnesota.

During contract negotiations, which had been ongoing since April and continued with only slight interruptions -- including the USW's international convention in July -- ArcelorMittal and the union had differed on the company's commitment to reinvest in U.S. plants, health care premiums, contributions to retirees.

And after U.S. Steel and the USW reached it tentative labor agreement Aug. 10, which set a new standard for the integrated steel industry, two sides struggled with how they should apply the U.S. Steel agreement because of different starting points for calculations on health care premiums, profit sharing and incentives and eventually reached Wednesday's strike authorization.

According to an e-mail from Local 1010's Hargrove, that capital investment plan could be as high as least $3 billion.

The commitment, Robinson said, is similar to U.S. Steel's $9 billion commitment outlined in its Aug. 10 agreement with USW that is expected to be ratified Sept. 9.

Robinson, who was the secretary of the USW's ArcelorMittal negotiating committee, said ArcelorMittal union members and retirees deserve special recognition for keeping their plants open and communities alive throughout a steel crisis that began in the '90s and led to nearly 50 bankruptcies.

"We know that many of these plants would have been shut down years ago if not for the leadership role these men and women assumed when the time came to restructure and consolidate the steel industry in North America," he said.

After he heard there was a tentative contract agreement, Jim Brzezinski came to the USW Local 1010 union hall in East Chicago, where nearly 500 union members on Wednesday had approved a strike authorization by a voice vote.

Brzezinski, a 55-year-old Whiting resident, who is a service technician in Plant No. 2 and has been with the company for 34 years, said he was prepared for a strike, something that USW International President Leo W. Gerard said can now be averted.

"Our members and retirees at ArcelorMittal now have the opportunity to enjoy the employment security, economic security and retirement security they earned through years of hard work and sacrifice," Gerard said Saturday. "These members' unwavering, long-term solidarity and support for our bargaining committee has been rewarded."

Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal is the world's largest steel company with 320,000 employees in 62 countries. Lakshmi Mittal is its chairman and chief executive officer. His son, Aditya Mittal, is company president and chief financial officer.

-- Times Staff Writer Carmen McCollum and The Associated Press contributed to this report.