• The average UPS driver could get $170,000 in pay and benefits in five years' time in a new contract.

• Tech workers said the boost could make UPS driver pay competitive with tech salaries.

• Some tech workers said they felt "underpaid" in comparison while others said UPS drivers had difficult jobs.

The average UPS driver could get six-figure pay under a new contract, and tech workers have mixed feelings about it.

During an earnings call on Tuesday, UPS CEO Carol Tomé said that by the end of its five-year contract with the Teamsters union, the average full-time UPS driver would make about $170,000 in annual pay and benefits, such as healthcare and pension benefits. The comments were made after UPS came to a tentative agreement to head off a potential strike in July with Teamsters, the union that represents about 340,000 UPS delivery drivers and package handlers. The agreement has yet to be officially approved by union members, but the results of a vote on the issue are set to be announced later this month.

Some tech workers on social media pointed out the salary boost could make the drivers' salaries more competitive with white-collar employees — and big tech workers responded with a mix of ire and appreciation for the union.

"This is disappointing, how is possible that a driver makes much more than average Engineer in R&D?" a worker at the autonomous-trucking company TuSimple wrote on Blind, an anonymous job-posting site that verifies users' employment using company emails. "To get a base salary of $170k you know you need to work hard as an Engineer, this sucks."

It's important to note that the $170,000 figure represents the entire value of the UPS package, including benefits, and doesn't represent the base salary. UPS drivers currently make an average of about $95,000 a year with an additional $50,000 in benefits, the company says. The average median salary for an engineer in the US is $103,845 with a base pay of about $91,958, Glassdoor indicates. It also indicates that TuSimple research engineers can make between $161,000 to $250,000 in compensation.