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.
Healthcare workers need to unionize
Half the problem is how many are “critical workers” and can’t outright strike. In my field, for instance, I’m union, but it wouldn’t be very good to strike in a traditional sense. We’re fire/ems, so the only people to really suffer from a strike would be the people who are calling 911 for help. So here we are, working 54 hours a week and making $42,000 a year.
Many of them are.