Strike averted at ports in Baltimore, elsewhere as labor agreement reached

Striking workers from the International Longshoremen’s Association stand on a picket line at the entrance to the South Locust Point Terminal in Baltimore. Barbara Haddock Taylor/Staff

Dockworkers at ports in Baltimore and along the East and Gulf coasts agreed to a labor contract with maritime employers just days before a deadline, averting a threatened strike.

The International Longshoremen’s Association reached a tentative agreement late Wednesday on a new, six-year contract with the U.S. Maritime Alliance, the group representing port operators and shipping companies.

The ILA represents about 2,400 workers at the Port of Baltimore.

The Maryland Port Administration, the state agency that owns but does not run Baltimore’s main cargo terminals, has not been directly involved in negotiations.

“The port industry is one of our nation’s leading job generators and is critically important to our national supply chain,” the agency said in a statement Thursday, calling the agreement “tremendous news for all of us in the maritime industry.”

The contract must be ratified by ILA and Maritime Alliance members, who had earlier reached an agreement on wages but continued to wrangle over working conditions and protection from automation. Details were not released.

“This agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coast ports – making them safer and more efficient, and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong,” the two sides said in a joint statement.

The union and employers had resumed bargaining after suspending a three-day, October strike of 45,000 dockworkers in East and Gulf Coast ports, including Baltimore’s, until Jan. 15.

The strike was the second time last year that port operations were significantly disrupted after the port mostly closed for about two months following the March collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

When the cargo ship Dali hit the bridge, the span collapsed into the Patapsco River, killing six road construction workers and blocking the shipping channel.

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