The union for longshoremen along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico has agreed to extend its contract until early February, averting a possible strike that could have crippled operations at ports that handle about 40 percent of all US container cargo, a federal mediator announced yesterday.
The extension came after the union and an alliance of port operators and shipping lines resolved one of the stickier points in their months-long contract negotiations, involving royalty payments to the longshoremen for each container they unload.
Negotiations will continue until at least Feb. 6. Some important contract issues remain, but the head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, George Cohen, said the deal on royalties was “a major positive step forward.”
Initially, the mediator announced the extension would be 30 days, until Jan. 28. Later, the union and its bargaining opponent, the US Maritime Alliance, said they had agreed to extend it even further, “in view of the year-end holiday season.”
The terms of the royalty agreement were not announced.
The master contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the Maritime Alliance originally expired in September. The two sides agreed to extend it once before, for 90 days, but it had been set to expire again at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow.
As recently as Dec. 19, the president of the longshoremen, Harold Daggett, had said a strike was expected.
A work stoppage would have idled shipments of a vast number of consumer products, from electronics to clothing, and kept US manufacturers from getting parts and raw materials delivered easily.