East and Gulf Coast port operators late Wednesday struck an agreement with a dockworkers union, resolving a labor dispute that had threatened to halt shipments for a second time in three months.
The two sides — the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance — announced in a joint statement Wednesday evening that they had reached a tentative deal on a new six-year contract that averts a strike that would have started January 15.
"This agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coasts ports – making them safer and more efficient, and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong," the two parties said in their statement.
Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
This comes after members of the ILA had ended a three-day walkout in October after reaching a tentative deal with the USMX that initially suspended the strike until Jan. 15. While resolving issues over pay, job security issues remained, with the union looking for guarantees that ports wouldn't use technology to replace workers.
The ILA argued against using more automation at the ports, saying the USMX was looking to cut their labor costs and boost profits.
For their part, port operators and shipping companies argued that the U.S. is falling behind automated ports like those in Dubai, Rotterdam and Singapore.
The stakes were high for the U.S. economy. Ports on the East and Gulf coasts handle more than half the nation's traffic in shipping containers, the steel boxes at the center of world trade, which carry everything from smartphones to fresh fruit to automobiles.
