U.S. Port Workers Agree to End Their Strike

The longshoremen’s strike that halted freight traffic at the Port of New York and New Jersey and other East Coast and Gulf ports has been paused after officials said the International Longshoremen’s Association reached a tentative wage agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance.

This from msn.com.

U.S. Port Workers Agree to End Their Strike

The strike, which had raised concerns about supply chain disruptions for millions of tons of goods entering the region, has been suspended as both parties continue negotiations over unresolved issues like job protections from automation.

Officials said:

The dockworkers’ union and the United States Maritime Alliance—a group representing employers of the East and Gulf Coast longshore industry—have extended their master contract until Jan. 15, 2025, allowing more time to address these concerns.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement on Thursday:

For the past several weeks, New York has been working in close coordination with our port facilities, neighboring states and the federal government, to prepare for a potential strike at facilities from Maine to Texas.

Now that the International Longshoreman’s Association has decided to suspend their strike action while negotiations continue, I continue to urge USMX and the ILA to reach an agreement that respects the rights of workers and ensures a permanent flow of goods.

The strike had caused significant disruptions, with New York and New Jersey ports seeing major slowdowns in the movement of goods, including food, construction materials, and vehicles.

U.S. dockworkers agreed to return to work after port operators sweetened their contract offer, ending a three-day strike that threatened to disrupt the American economy.

The breakthrough Thursday came after port employers offered a 62% increase in wages over six years, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new offer, up from an earlier proposed raise of 50%, came after the White House privately and publicly pressed the large shipping lines and cargo terminal operators who employ the longshore workers to make a new offer to the union.

The International Longshoremen’s Association and port operators, in a joint statement, said they had reached a tentative agreement on wages and union members would return to work. They said the agreement would extend the prior contract, which expired at the start of this week, through Jan. 15, 2025 while the two sides negotiate on other issues, including automation on the docks.

The offer is less than the union demand for an increase of 77% over the term of the contract but a far larger increase than most major labor contracts, including a contract reached last year covering the separate union representing West Coast longshore workers. Many U.S. dockworkers currently earn more than a $100,000 a year, with baseline hourly wages boosted by work rules and overtime requirements.

The revised offer is a victory for Harold Daggett, the pugnacious leader of the ILA, who led his members on their first coastwide strike at U.S. ports in nearly 50 years.

The cost of the higher wages will be borne by cargo owners and shipping lines that manage the port terminals. Global giants such as Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and China’s Cosco Shipping operate many of the boxships that unload at U.S. ports.

The shipping lines, which reported record profits during the pandemic, will have to decide how much of the added costs to pass along to their customers, which are the big retailers, manufacturers, and farmers that import and export through the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports.