What once appeared to be an unlikely strike at East Coast ports is now inching closer to reality, threatening to put thousands of people in the Baltimore region out of work.

The union representing dockworkers and a trade group of shipping companies are at an impasse over wages and the automation of work at ports. The deadline for a new deal is Monday night. While those involved say they want to avoid a strike, there have been no signs of progress.

That means Baltimore longshoremen like Ryan Hale are once again about to be jobless. Hale said he remembers waking up six months ago, turning on the TV and seeing that a container ship had toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Six workers plunged to their deaths, and the Port of Baltimore was partially shut down.

“I had to flip the channels twice to make sure it wasn’t a horror film,” said Hale, who spoke at a press conference Thursday.

The press conference was supposed to be about a class-action lawsuit of dockworkers against the owner and manager of the container ship. The lawsuit alleges the Dali was unseaworthy and that the bridge collapse — and its impact on the port — was avoidable. But looming over the event was the knowledge that another port closure is only days away.

Hale and two of his fellow dockworkers said they went months with no work or reduced hours and that their wages this year have dropped by half.

All three are represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association, or ILA, which encompasses dockworkers from Texas to Maine.

Last year, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents West Coast dockworkers, secured a contract that gave members a 32% pay raise over six years. Several national outlets have reported that the ILA is asking for a 77% raise over six years after shipping companies made billions of dollars during the coronavirus pandemic.

The ILA has three local organizations operating in the Port of Baltimore. The largest, Local 333, has about 1,850 members who load and unload ships in public and privately owned Baltimore-area terminals.

Scott Cowan, president of Local 333, said in a text this week that a strike appears imminent, but did not elaborate.

The shipping companies and dock operators are represented by a trade group called the United States Maritime Alliance, or USMX. The current six-year contract covers about 25,000 workers, according to USMX, and expires at the end of the month.

The two sides have not met for months, even as the deadline is now less than 100 hours away.

The trade group filed an unfair labor practice charge Thursday morning, asking federal regulators to order the union to return to the negotiating table.

“USMX has been clear that we value the work of the ILA and have great respect for its members,” the statement said. “We have a shared history of working together and are committed to bargaining.”

If there is a strike, the economic fallout for Baltimore would be hard to calculate. While longshoremen are a fraction of the total people employed at the Port of Baltimore, their work is critical for the operation of almost any port activity.

According to a 2023 report commissioned by the state, more than 20,000 jobs are directly connected to the Port of Baltimore.

Christina DePasquale, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said any work stoppage would have a ripple effect, starting with the longshoremen and extending through other workers connected to the port, including truckers and warehouse workers, and broadening out to the wider local economy.

Some of those lost wages will be replaced if people dip into their savings, receive unemployment benefits or find work elsewhere, DePasquale said, but one thing is certain: A long strike would be much more disruptive and damaging than a short one.

Dean Croke, a market analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, said major retailers and importers have already been diverting shipments to ports on the West Coast in anticipation of an East Coast strike.

For much of the year, it didn’t look like there would be a strike, despite repeated threats from the ILA’s leadership. The last strike was nearly 50 years ago, and many people in the shipping and retail industries expected these contract issues to be resolved, according to Ron Leibman, a supply chain expert at the law firm McCarter & English.

But a strike is looking more plausible with each passing day.

“I don’t believe this is a bluff,” Leibman said.

With only about a month until the presidential election, a strike would almost certainly become a political issue, Leibman said. The Biden Administration could invoke the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and order longshoremen back to work, but Leibman said the politics are tricky.

“Do they do something that might be considered anti-union? By not doing something, do they cause a whole bunch of angst among consumers?” Leibman said. “They’re really caught in the middle.”

Linda Loubert, an associate professor of economics at Morgan State University, said American unions appear reenergized — and workers more willing to strike — than at any time in recent memory.

Nationally, auto workers in the Midwest, plane manufacturers in the Northwest, and writers in Hollywood and New York have gone on strike. Locally, workers at MOM’s Organic Market, Starbucks, and an Apple Store in the Baltimore area have formed unions.

Politicians, too, are paying more attention to the economic divide between employees and the executives of the corporations that employ them, Loubert said, and there seems to be a sense of momentum.

“I think it’s contagious,” Loubert said.

Still, she and other experts said they hoped the longshoremen’s new contract could be negotiated without a strike. That’s what Alonzo Key is hoping for, too. But Key, another longshoreman at Thursday’s press conference, said he and his coworkers are bracing to be out of work.

“Outside of voting for representation, we don’t have a lot of say-so as to how this strike is resolved,” Key said.