Shipping containers stack up at the Port of Baltimore on September 21, 2018.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

The strike by tens of thousands of dock workers on the East Coast and Gulf Coast has been called off after the International Longshoremen’s Association and the US Maritime Alliance, which represents ocean carriers and port operators, reached a tentative agreement on wages.

The two sides also agreed to extend the existing contract until January 15, 2025. In the meantime, they will return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues, including the union’s demand for a ban on all automation in the ports .

The International Longshoremen’s Association had called for a $5 per hour wage increase in each of the next six years, representing a 77% increase over six years. A day before the strike began, the US Maritime Alliance had offered nearly a 50% pay increase.

The White House had downplayed the economic impact of a short strike, despite warnings from Republicans in the House of Representatives and more than 170 industry groups that a work stoppage would have a devastating impact on supply chains and the broader economy.

President Biden has repeatedly promised to allow the collective bargaining process to proceed.

“I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley,” Biden told reporters days before the strike, citing the federal law that allows the president to impose an 80-day cooling-off period when the country’s security is at risk.

Typically, more than $2 billion worth of goods flow through these ports every day, from chemicals and clothing to bourbon and bananas. This week, dozens of container ships began lining up off the coast, waiting for the strike to end.

The affected ports — from Boston to Houston — normally handle more than half of all cargo containers entering the U.S., or about a million containers per month, as well as more than 300,000 containers leaving the country, according to the Freight Registry. company Vision.

All work will resume with immediate effect, the two sides said in a joint statement.