Dockworkers on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast were expected to strike on Tuesday morning after a midnight deadline passed with no sign of a new contract deal with port owners. The strike is forecast to halt about half the nation's ocean shipping.

Tens of thousands of longshoremen at 14 ports along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico are poised to walk off the job early Tuesday morning if their union and employers cannot reach a new labor agreement by midnight,

Members of the International Longshoremen's Association, some 45,000 workers at ports from Maine to Texas, are on strike, a shipping shutdown that could cost the economy up to $4.5 billion US a day.

On Tuesday morning, 45,000 dock workers at 36 ports across the country are off the job and on strike, including here in Baltimore. Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association or ILA starte