The strike threat was earlier issued by five major labor federations, representing nearly 70,000 workers, to press for wage improvements and settlement of other demands that primarily included a 35-percent hike in wages for a five-year period.
Labor representatives said authorities agreed to call another bipartite wage-negotiation committee meeting on or before March 31 to address the workers' long-standing concerns.
India has 12 major ports, equally spread over the west and east coasts, which handled 519 million tons of cargo in fiscal 2007-08, up from 463.8 million tons in 2006-07. Container traffic grew 19 percent to 6.6 million TEUs from 5.5 million TEUs.