Baltimore dockworkers joined tens of thousands of longshoremen who went on strike early Tuesday along the East and Gulf coasts, rejecting an 11th-hour offer to boost wages and shutting down ports from Maine to Texas.

The International Longshoremen’s Association rejected port operators’ Monday offer to boost wages by 50% over six years.

The first widespread longshoremen’s strike in almost five decades started at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday as members began walking picket lines, effectively shutting down Baltimore’s port for the second time this year after the shipping accident that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge and blocked the channel for two months.

ILA workers began picketing just after midnight outside the main gates at Dundalk and Seagirt marine terminals in Southeast Baltimore. The union represents around 2,400 workers in the port.

Outside one entrance on Broening Highway on Tuesday morning, about 40 Longshoremen wearing neon yellow jackets marched in a circle in a steady rain, chanting “Who are we? ILA.”

They carried signs that read “Profit over people is unacceptable” and “Machines don’t feed families. Support ILA workers.”

Workers tried to block an 18-wheeler truck from driving through the gate, but a union organizer told them to clear the way for the driver, apparently a terminal employee but not an ILA member.

Some car carrier trucks entered terminals after the start of the strike but only to unload or pick up vehicles from terminals, not ships. Otherwise, no traffic came through the gates. Drivers along Broening Highway honked horns in support.

Striking dockworkers declined to talk to The Baltimore Sun, referring questions to the ILA headquarters in New York.

The ILA rejected a final proposal Monday from the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents shipping lines and marine terminal operators, saying it fell “far short” of demands for higher wages and protections against automation.

“USMX brought on this strike when they decided to hold firm to foreign-owned Ocean Carriers earning billion-dollar profits at United States ports, but not compensate the American ILA longshore workers who perform the labor that brings them their wealth,” said Harold Daggett, president of the 85,000-member union, in a Facebook post.

Daggett vowed the union will stay on strike until its demands are met.

A strike is expected to shut down the Port of Baltimore for the second time this year. The port was largely closed for about two months after the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the span into the Patapsco River, blocking the channel and killing six roadway workers.

It’s also expected to disrupt the economy, both locally and around the country, as the delivery of goods from overseas is delayed. Some economists expect costs to rise, rekindling inflation just as it seemed to be coming under control.

Experts have said a work stoppage of even more than a few days at 36 eastern U.S. ports could lead to lengthy delays and shortages of consumer goods and raw materials for factories.

If a strike drags on for more than a week, for instance, consumers might notice shortages of perishable products at the grocery store, such as bananas, most of which come through U.S. ports from Central America, said Tinglong Dai, the Bernard T. Ferrari professor of business at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. A longer stoppage could impact auto parts or sales, he said.

“The Port of Baltimore is still recovering, so it could be quite a big blow to the port here,” Dai said. “And the impact is different from what happened in April. That was just one port of many on the East Coast, and you could find a substitute. This time you cannot.”

Already, less than a day into the strike, retailers throughout the state are worried about deliveries, especially with the crucial holiday selling season approaching, said Cailey Locklair, president of the Maryland Retailers Alliance.

“There’s an immense amount of concern,” Locklair said. “We already are dealing with a crisis because of the bridge, which is impacting the free flow of goods here in Maryland. [The] businesses we represent, both large and small, really rely on the free flow of these goods being able to come in and out of Maryland.”

The state retailers group, along with dozens of organizations from around the country representing manufacturers, farmers, restaurants, importers, exporters and others, signed a joint letter to President Joe Biden last month, urging the president to prevent a work stoppage.

That campaign was spearheaded by the National Retail Federation, which doubled down Tuesday on its efforts and called for Biden to authorize an 80-day “cooling off” period when labor would return to work while negotiations resume. Such intervention is allowed under a provision of the Taft-Hartley Act when a strike puts national health or safety at risk. Biden has said he has no plans to intervene.

“A disruption of this scale during this pivotal moment in our nation’s economic recovery will have devastating consequences for American workers, their families and local communities,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, said in a news release Tuesday.

The Maritime Alliance said late Monday that it offered to increase the longshoremen’s wages by nearly 50 percent, triple employer contributions to employee retirement plans, strengthen health care options and keep current language tied to automation, which has been a bargaining sticking point.

The ILA has been seeking even larger raises — $5 per hour wage increases for each year of the six-year agreement — citing huge profits in the industry.

“They definitely do have a lot of public support right now,” said Todd Vachon, director of the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University. “The workers are in a very powerful position as long as the public is in support of them.”

Support for unions in the U.S. is at a 60-year high, he said. The public sympathizes with a desire to boost wages amid inflation and higher corporate profits. And unionized workers increasingly have gone on strike or come close in the last several years in industries from auto manufacturing to Hollywood screenwriting.

Longshoremen are fighting for many of the same issues, better wages and working conditions and protection from automation, Vachon said.

But if consumers face shortages, that could erode public support.

“Any major strike is obviously going to be devastating to the economy, but the impact here can just be so much greater,” Vachon said. “Imports and exports don’t just impact one sector, they impact the whole of the economy.”

“This could be a real test,” he said. “How deep does the support for labor really go right now?”

In a July letter on social media seeking public support for wage increases, ILA Executive Vice President Dennis A. Daggett sought to explain how automation and growing ownership of terminals by private equity firms pose a threat to dockworkers’ livelihoods.

“Our jobs don’t follow a 9-to-5 schedule,” he said in the letter. “We work when the ships call, often putting in up to 100 hours or more a week to provide for our families. We don’t complain about the work — we are proud of what we do.”

But the union’s strike announcement early Tuesday on Facebook was met with mixed reactions.

“Corporate greed is the cause of this,” said one post that argued the ILA should be recognized for working in all conditions, around the clock and during the pandemic. “Corporate greed trying to automate and displace humans of their jobs and means of feeding their families is unacceptable.”

Others disagreed.

“Right in the middle of a natural disaster,” said another post, adding “I’m ashamed to be a union member right now.”

Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun .com, 410-332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.