Longshoremen walk a picket line outside the Dundalk Marine Terminal in Baltimore on Oct. 1, 2024, the first day of an International Longshoremen’s Association strike against East Coast and Gulf Coast ports. The union suspded the strike Thursday until Jan. 15, after making progress on a new contract. (Danielle Brown | Maryland Matters)
Longshoremen are returning to work at ports from Maine to Texas, just three days after walking out on a strike that threatened to cripple the economy if it went on for an extended period of time.
In a joint statement Thursday night, the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents shipping companies, said they had “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. Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.”
The contract had expired Monday, and the ILA and its 45,000 members walked out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, shutting down dozens of ports along the East Coast and Gulf Coast. It was the first such large-scale strike on the East Coast since 1977.
The announcement of a return to work was immediately welcomed by President Joe Biden and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who earlier in the week had called on both sides to return to the bargaining table but had otherwise refused to intervene in the strike.
“Our state is not complete without the men and women that works these ports every day, and we are thrilled that come tomorrow morning our ports will be firing on all cylinders,” Moore said in a statement Thursday evening.
Biden congratulated both sides on a “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. 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,” he said in a statement released by the White House.
The two sides did not release details of Thursday’s tentative agreement on wages, but the union has been demanding an increase of $5 an hour in each of the six years of the new contract being negotiated. The shippers, known as USMX, had offered an annual $3.25 an hour raise on Monday, according to published reports, but that offer was rejected by the union.
In addition to higher wages, the union has been demanding more generous health care benefits and a ban on automation of port operations.
USMX said last month that it had offered a continuation of health benefits and automation protections as well as higher wages and retirement contributions. It said its last offer Monday would “increase wages by nearly 50 percent, triple employer contributions to employee retirement plans, strengthen our health care options, and retain the current language around automation and semi-automation.”
Each side blamed the other for the strike, with the union claiming the shippers refused “demands for a fair and decent contract” and USMX saying the ILA was refusing to negotiate. USMX filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the union with the National Labor Relations Board last week.
Because of the number of ports affected, the strike had the potential to be a drag on the U.S. economy, affecting supply chains and hampering holiday sales if it went on for an extended period of time.
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