Longshoremen's strike suspended: Sources – ABC News

A historic port strike in the United States has been suspended, sources told ABC News.

Sources familiar with the negotiations told ABC News that the two sides reached a tentative agreement on wages and agreed to extend the framework agreement until January 15. The sources said they would return to the negotiating table to address all outstanding issues.

Tens of thousands of U.S. longshoremen walked off the job early Tuesday morning, clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts.

Members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) began picketing shipping ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. This was the union's first coast-wide strike in nearly 50 years.

The ILA, the union that represents 50,000 longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts under the disputed contract, called for higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.

“ILA longshoremen deserve compensation for the important work they do to keep America's trade moving and growing,” the ILA said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. “Meanwhile, ILA’s dedicated longshoremen continue to suffer from inflation due to USMX’s unfair wage packages.”

After the strike, President Joe Biden demanded a fair deal from the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), an organization that negotiates on behalf of dockworker employers. In a statement released Tuesday, Biden highlighted shipping companies' strong profits in recent years as well as the sacrifices made by longshoremen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid the strike, USMX said Wednesday it remains “committed to negotiating in good faith to address the ILA's demands and USMX's concerns.”

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could have reignited inflation in some goods and led to layoffs among manufacturers as raw materials dried up, experts said.

The last time East and Gulf Coast workers went on strike in 1977, the stoppage lasted seven weeks.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11 days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff.