Workers at major ports in India have agreed to a new five-year collective bargaining agreement, just one day before they were set to strike.
The union representing 20,000 longshoremen and tugboat operators at India’s 12 major shipping hubs had initially planned to go on strike indefinitely on August 28, Reuters reports. Negotiations over the deal date back to 2021, when the union was pushing for a 10% wage increase after their previous agreement expired. Workers eventually accepted a 8.5% pay bump back-dated to January of 2022.
A strike would have had wide-ranging impacts on the global shipping industry, with India’s three biggest ports — Chennai, Chocin and Mumbai — handling an estimated 1.62 billion metric tons of cargo annually, according to Reuters. There were also fears that a stoppage at Indian ports could coincide with a potential strike at U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports, ahead of an October 1 deadline to reach a new collective bargaining deal with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). The ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance filed for federal mediation on August 19 and August 22 respectively.
