The more than 14,000 waterfront workers at 15 East and Gulf Coast ports have ratified a new six-year master agreement between the Longshoremen (ILA) and the port employer group the United States Maritime Alliance.

The Longshoremen (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance have reached a tentative agreement covering some 14,000 workers in 15 East Coast ports, the Federal Mediation Service and Conciliation (FMCS) announced late Friday. The two sides had faced a Feb. 6 strike deadline.

A temporary deal has been reached between the Longshoremen (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMA) that will delay for 30 days a strike that was scheduled to start Sunday. The strike would have shut down East Coast ports from Boston to Miami, with 14,000 workers taking part. A strike will start at midnight Jan. 28 if a deal isn't reached by then.

Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from Alabama, where she will report on the delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders as they investigate Alabama’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.

With the passage of H.B. 56, Alabama has taken a huge step backward, into the 1950s. Today, an African American delegation of labor and civil rights leaders traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on what is seen as one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.