Aerial view of Dundalk Marine Terminal on October 03, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland.
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The largest US dock workers union and the United States Maritime Alliance agreed Thursday to a tentative agreement on wages and extending their existing contract through Jan. 15 to give time to negotiate a new contract.
The move ends a strike that has hit East Coast and Gulf Coast ports since the beginning of the week and threatened US supplies of fruit, cars, and other goods.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, Ltd. reached a tentative agreement on wages and agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025 to return to the negotiating table to negotiate all other outstanding issues,” The International. The Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance said in a joint statement.
Within a week, the strike had already begun to weigh on US imports. Thousands of containers were dumped at the wrong ports, and billions of dollars worth of cargo was held up overseas because the ports weren’t working, CNBC previously reported. Shipping costs had started to rise.
The strike was the first by the ILA since 1977, and affected the operations of 14 different ports. About 50,000 of the union’s 85,000 members went on strike this week. In a statement Tuesday, ILA President Harold Daggett said the union is asking for a $5-an-hour raise for each year of the six-year contract.
ILU salaries will increase 61.5% over six years under the proposed agreement, sources told CNBC’s Lori Ann LaRocco. The central argument about port automation is still being debated.