A historic United States port strike has been suspended, according to the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance.
In a joint statement Thursday evening, the ILA and USMX said, a tentative agreement was reached "on wages" and extending "the Master Contract until January 15, 2025 to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues."
The statement said, "Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume."
On early Tuesday morning, tens of thousands of U.S. dockworkers walked off the job clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts.
In nearly 50 years, ILA members started to set up picket lines at shipping ports up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the union's first coastwide strike.
The ILA, the union representing 50,000 East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers under the contract at issue, was seeking higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.
The ILA told ABC News in a statement Monday, "ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing." "Meanwhile, ILA dedicated longshore workers continue to be crippled by inflation due to USMX's unfair wage packages."
Following the strike, President Joe Biden urged the USMX, an organization negotiating for the employers of dockworkers, to make a fair offer.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Biden highlighted the substantial profits that shipping firms have made in recent years, as well as the sacrifices made by dockworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid the strike, USMX said Wednesday it remained "committed to bargaining in good faith to address the ILA's demands and USMX's concerns."
Experts say, a prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could have rekindled inflation for some goods and triggered layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dried up.
During the 1977 strike, East Coast and Gulf Coast employees went on strike for seven weeks.
In 2002, a strike occurred at West Coast ports, lasting 11 days until then-President George W. Bush intervened by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act to resolve the situation.
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