A historic United States port strike has been suspended and a tentative agreement was reached “on wages,” according to the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance.
“Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume,” the ILA and USMX said in a joint statement Thursday evening.
The tentative agreement would increase workers’ wages by 62% over the life of the 6-year contract, sources familiar confirm to ABC News.
This represents a significant increase from the shipping industry group’s offer of a 50% wage increase earlier this week. The union had been pushing for a 77% pay hike over six years.
The tentative agreement would bring the hourly wage for a top dockworker to $63 per hour at the end of the new contract, up from $39 per hour under the expired contract.
They asked for 77% pay raises over 6 years and negotiated for 62%. This is a decent deal. Any victory for labor is a victory for all our us. Sure there is still a lot of work to be done, but this is a win.
Hence the “ish.” It’s a victory. It could be a better one. That’s a 15% difference from what they wanted.
Not necessarily. Prudent to start with an offer higher than your actual goal so you have room to bargain downward.
Absolutely. This is collective bargaining 101. Look at the historic UAW strike of 2023 and what they asked for at the start. Discounting that it was the first trilateral strike against the big three automakers union history, they asked for an historic amount of benefits and workplace changes.
-46% pay increase over contract duration
-Restoration of pension
-Retiree healthcare
-Healthcare benefits for all
-Cost of living adjustments
-End to the wage tiers system that divides the laborers into different “classes” of workers
-32-hour workweek with no loss in pay
If you don’t go for audacious, you will get far less than you need.
They got:
-25% pay increase in wages over the 4.5 year contract, 11% at outset
-Cost of living adjustments
-$5k bonus
-Elimination of the tiered wage system (Fucking huge)
If they never went to bat for the audacious, they never would have gotten the tiered system removed. Now they have far more solidarity and collective bargaining power for the next negotiation. All because of audacious demands and striking unilaterally across the big three.
This is just one contract negotiation and strike. Much work to still be done.
Adding to what everyone else said, this is still a tentative deal. This is not the final form of the contract they’ll sign.