BREAKING: Longshoremen Union Reaches Tentative Deal To Suspend Port Strike

On Thursday evening, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) reached a tentative deal with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) to raise wages and get the port workers back on the job beginning Friday. According to reports, the longshoremen were able to secure a 62 percent wage increase in a deal that will last 90 days. 

The ILA, which includes 45,000 workers along the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast, reached the tentative agreement after launching their strike on Tuesday. The union and USMX have brokered a "tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025, to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues."

As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, the ILA's previous contract with USMX had dockworkers starting out at $20 an hour, $24.75 per hour after two years, and $31.90 after three years. Dockworkers on the East Coast earn an average yearly salary of around $80,000 at the top hourly wage of $39; however, longshoremen can take extra shifts and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 2019-2020 report from the New York Harbor Waterfront Commission found that a third of longshoremen made over $200,000 a year. The ILA president explained that the dockworkers making over $100,000 a year often work more than 100 hours a week.

In an attempt to prevent the strike, USMX, whose contract expired with the ILA on Monday, offered a nearly 50 percent pay increase for dockworkers, a tripling of employer contributions to retirement plans, enhanced health coverage, and the preservation of safeguards against regulations that could eliminate longshoreman jobs at a fraction of the cost. These attempts weren't welcomed by Daggett, however, who is pushing for a 77 percent raise over six years.

"They have the capital to settle this thing," Daggett told Fox News. "Now you start to realize who the longshoremen are. People never gave a shit about us until now, when they finally realize that the chain is being broken now. Cars won't come in, food won't come in, clothing won't come in. Do you know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world. It's time for them, it's time for Washington to put so much pressure on them to take care of us because we took care of them. We're here 135 years and brought them where they are today, and they don't want to share."

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