Dockworkers suspend strike after reaching tentative deal

The International Longshoremen’s Association, the union representing striking U.S. dockworkers at East and Gulf Coast ports, reached a tentative deal Thursday to suspend its strike until Jan. 15 to negotiate a new contract. 
The strike had shut down 14 ports along the East and Gulf Coasts since Tuesday. 
The deal was reached with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), a shipping industry group representing terminal operators and ocean carriers.
The two sides have “reached a tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025, to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues,” the ILA and USMX said in joint statement Thursday evening announcing the agreement. 
The statement added that “all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.”
In an interview with CBS News Baltimore immediately after the deal was announced, ILA Local 333 President Scott Cowan said the deal involved a 61.5% wage increase over the next six years and includes language to protect workers from automation “and other issues that we need resolved.”
The Port of New York and New Jersey said on social media that facilities would remain closed on Friday despite the USMX agreement, with more details to follow. 
In a statement released Thursday night, President Biden applauded the two sides “for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports.”
“Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract. I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic,” Mr. Biden said. “And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table.”
Thomas Kohler, a professor of labor and employment law at Boston College, said the agreement to halt the strike means the sides are close to a final deal.
“I’m sure that if they weren’t going anywhere they wouldn’t have suspended [the strike’,” he said. “They’ve got wages. They’ll work out the language on automation, and I’m sure that what this really means is it gives the parties time to sit down and get exactly the language they can both live with.”
Before launching the strike, the ILA had pushed for a 77% wage hike, the equivalent of a $5 per hour increase for each year of the contract. USMX last week offered a nearly 50% increase, along with improvements to employee benefits, but it was not enough to avert the first strike by East and Gulf Coast dockworkers in nearly half a century.
Under the dockworkers’ last labor contract with USMX, starting pay for a longshoreman was $20 per hour and topped out at $39, or just over $81,000 a year. Some dockworkers can earn more than $100,000 by working overtime.
The union was also seeking a complete ban on cargo terminals using automated cranes, gates and container-moving trucks to load and unload freight. 
The union’s membership won’t need to vote on the temporary suspension of the strike. Until Jan. 15, the workers will be covered under the old contract, which expired on Sept. 30.
Experts had warned that a prolonged strike could block the import and export of a number of products, including food, factory parts, and raw materials like wood and copper. Economists also worried that a long work stoppage could potentially drive up inflation and even lead to shortages of certain products.  
The tentative agreement to end the strike removes a cloud for the Biden administration. In the weeks before the strike, Mr. Biden had underlined that he wouldn’t invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to order an 80-day cooling off period, but rather allow the collective bargaining process to play out. 
Behind the scenes, however, the White House pressed the sides to come to terms, dispatching officials from the Labor Department, Transportation Department and National Economic Council to resolve their differences. 
The deal is also a victory for ILA President Harold Daggett and, more broadly, for organized labor in the U.S., which has increasingly pushed a range of companies to share more of their profits with workers and to strengthen job security. In 2023, for example, the United Auto Workers won significant concessions from car makers after a six week strike. 
In another high-profile dispute, the union representing film and television actors in November struck a new labor contract with Hollywood studios that raised performers’ pay while putting guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence. 
At the same time, the percentage of workers who belong to a union has sunk to 10% as of 2023, down from more than 20% in 1983, according to federal labor data.

The Associated Press

contributed to this report.