U.S. dock workers and port operators reached a tentative deal that will immediately end a crippling three-day strike that has shut down shipping on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast, the two sides said Thursday.
The tentative agreement is for a wage hike of around 62% over six years, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, including a worker on the picket line who heard the announcement. That would raise average wages to about $63 an hour from $39 an hour over the life of the contract.
The deal ends the biggest work stoppage of its kind in nearly half a century, which blocked unloading of container ships from Maine to Texas and threatened shortages of everything from bananas to auto parts, triggering a backlog of anchored ships outside major ports.
.world loves to trot out the fact that highly skilled workers have sick leave now and it really pisses me off
The reality is 90% of workers have been able to get some form of sick leave, but 10,000 are still left with zero. It’s been years! If the unions had been allowed to strike they could and would have gotten sick leave for every single worker, probably immediately, but the most vulnerable were abandoned. That’s all that is possible without being allowed to strike. Imagine how much more was possible!