Port Union Agrees to Suspend Strike

The International Longshoremen’s Association agreed on Thursday to suspend a strike that closed down major ports on the East and Gulf Coasts. The move followed an improved wage offer from port employers.

The strike, which the dockworkers’ union began on Tuesday, threatened to weigh on the economy five weeks before national elections. Employers, represented by the United States Maritime Alliance, have offered to increase wages by 62 percent over the course of a new six-year contract, according to a person familiar with negotiations who did not want to be identified because the talks were continuing. That increase is lower than what the union had initially asked for, but much higher than the alliance’s earlier offer.

In a statement, the union said that it had reached “a tentative agreement on wages” and that its 45,000 members would go back to work, with the current contract extended until Jan. 15. The union said it was returning to the bargaining table “to negotiate all other outstanding issues.”

The alliance did not immediately issue a statement of its own.

The agreement came after the White House pressed both sides to reach a deal. The wage increase is a clear victory for the I.L.A. and its combative president, Harold J. Daggett, a 78-year-old, third-generation dockworker who has led the union since 2011.

A 62 percent increase would raise the top longshoremen’s wage to just over $63 per hour at the end of a new six-year contract, from today’s $39 per hour. And at $63 an hour, the wages of East and Gulf Coast longshoremen would slightly exceed those that will be earned by West Coast longshoremen, who belong to a different union, at the end of their contract in 2027.

In the resumed talks, the issue of how much automation can