The dockers’ strike has been suspended and the tentative agreement provides for a 62% pay increase over six years

A historic port strike in the United States has been suspended and a tentative agreement reached “on wages,” according to the International Longshoremen’s Association and the US Maritime Alliance.

“Effective immediately, all current work activities will cease and all work covered under the framework agreement will resume,” ILA and USMX said in a joint statement Thursday evening.

The tentative agreement would increase workers’ wages by 62% over the life of the six-year contract, sources familiar confirm to ABC News.

This represents a significant increase on the shipping industry’s offer to increase wages by 50% earlier this week. The union had pushed for a 77% wage increase over six years.

The tentative agreement would increase the hourly wage for a top longshoreman to $63 an hour at the end of the new contract, up from $39 an hour in the expired contract.

The Maritime Alliance increased its offer due to public pressure from the Biden administration to submit a contract with higher wages.

The tentative agreement does not resolve disagreements between the union and shipping companies over the use of automated machinery, sources said. This will be a key focus of negotiations between the two sides until January 15th.

“I want to thank the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for joining together to reopen East Coast and Gulf ports. Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an expansion of the collective bargaining process represents crucial progress toward a… “It’s a strong contract,” Preisdent Joe Biden said of the agreement.

“I want to thank union employees, shippers and port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for the recovery and reconstruction from Hurricane Helene. Collective bargaining works and is critical to building a stronger economy from the center out and from the bottom up,” he continued.

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

ILA members began picketing shipping ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. This was the union’s first coast-wide strike in nearly 50 years.

The ILA, the union that represents 50,000 longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts under the disputed contract, called for higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.

“ILA longshoremen deserve compensation for the important work they do to keep America’s trade moving and growing,” the ILA said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. “Meanwhile, ILA’s dedicated longshoremen continue to suffer from inflation due to USMX’s unfair wage packages.”

After the strike, President Joe Biden demanded a fair deal from USMX, an organization that negotiates on behalf of longshoremen’s employers. In a statement released Tuesday, Biden highlighted shipping companies’ strong profits in recent years as well as the sacrifices made by longshoremen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid the strike, USMX said Wednesday it remains “committed to negotiating in good faith to address the ILA’s demands and USMX’s concerns.”

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could have reignited inflation in some goods and led to layoffs among manufacturers as raw materials dried up, experts said.

The last time East and Gulf Coast workers went on strike in 1977, the 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.