SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shipping companies and terminal operators clinched a tentative deal with the dockworkers union on Friday, settling a labor dispute that led to months of cargo backups at 29 U.S. West Coast ports and snarled trans-Pacific trade with Asia.
The deal, confirmed by a source close to the situation, was reached after the U.S. labor secretary arrived in San Francisco this week to help broker contentious negotiations that had dragged on for nine months between the shippers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
There was no official word from either side that an accord was reached.
Tensions arising from the talks have played out in worsening cargo congestion that has slowed freight traffic at the ports, which handle nearly half of all U.S. maritime trade and more than 70 percent of the nation's imports from Asia.
Perez was sent as an emissary of President Barack Obama, who had come under mounting political pressure to intervene in a conflict that by some estimates could have ended up costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars.
The 20,000 dockworkers covered by the tentative labor accord have been without a contract since July.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Additional reporting by Sarah McBride in San Francisco; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)
