Port strike day 3: Dockworkers strike suspended until Jan 15

A historic United States port strike has been suspended, sources told ABC News.

Sources familiar with the negotiations told ABC News that the two sides had reached a tentative agreement on wages and agreed to extend the master contract until Jan. 15. The sources said they will return to the bargaining table to negotiate all outstanding issues.

Tens of thousands of U.S. dockworkers had walked off the job early Tuesday morning, clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts.

International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) members started to set up picket lines at shipping ports up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the union's first coastwide strike in nearly 50 years.

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The ILA, the union representing 50,000 East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers under the contract at issue, was seeking higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.

"ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing," the ILA told ABC News in a statement on Monday. "Meanwhile, ILA dedicated longshore workers continue to be crippled by inflation due to USMX's unfair wage packages."

Following the strike, President Joe Biden called for a fair offer from the U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, an organization bargaining on behalf of the dockworkers' employers. In a statement released on Tuesday, Biden emphasized the strong profits enjoyed by shipping firms in recent years, as well as the sacrifices made by dockworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Amid the strike, USMX said Wednesday it remained "committed to bargaining in good faith to address the ILA's demands and USMX's concerns."

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could have rekindled inflation for some goods and triggered layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dried up, experts said.

The last time East Coast and Gulf Coast workers went on strike, in 1977, the work stoppage lasted seven weeks.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11 days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff.