New London ― Longshoremen went back to work at State Pier on Thursday, ending a three-day strike against Danish energy company Ørsted despite an unresolved dispute about work jurisdiction at the offshore wind hub.

As a result, crews at State Pier on Friday were expected to continue work loading the 330-foot long wind turbine blades and accompanying wind turbine components onto an awaiting barge headed to the waters of Long Island, where Ørsted’s South Fork Wind project is located.

About 30 longshoremen are performing work at State Pier side-by-side with contracted union members from the building trades.

The issues that led to the strike and protests outside the gates of State Pier earlier this week, however, remain unresolved.

While most of the separation of work jurisdictions between the two unions is undisputed, longshoremen have pushed to secure jobs operating the 500-foot-tall cranes and mobile transports used to move the wind turbine parts around the pier.

That work is performed by Operating Engineers and part of the project labor agreement secured between Ørsted and the building trades.

The ILA contends that work historically has gone ILA members and thinks Ørsted got it wrong when they trained and signed an agreement with the Operating Engineers, said Jim Paylor, assistant general organizer for the ILA and co-chair of that group’s offshore wind committee.

Prior to work starting at State Pier, Paylor said, the ILA had repeatedly asked Ørsted for updates on what type of training might be needed for ILA members to be able to work in its role of loading and off-loading material at the port.

The Operating Engineers were among union members in the building trades that were forced to rent a bus and call in support from law enforcement to get through ILA picket lines on Tuesday.

Keith Brothers, president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, whose membership includes a variety of union workers with a labor agreement for construction and assembly work at State Pier, said the two sides were back at work together on Thursday but said the future remains unclear.

He said members of the Operating Engineers union will continue to operate the specialized cranes used to lift and place the massive wind turbine parts onto barges until they are told otherwise.

“We’re doing work in our jurisdiction and they’re doing theirs,” Brothers said.

Brothers called it a “bad situation for everybody,” when union members have to cross picket lines to get to work. But the building trades unions have a construction project labor agreement in place and the licensed operating engineers are the ones trained and qualified to run those cranes, Brothers said.

“That’s kind of where the disagreement is,” Brothers said. “It hasn’t been resolved and how it gets resolved I’m not sure. That’s a national question that the two sides need to figure out, come to a compromise or this will keep going on and on.”

And while Brothers thinks there may be a compromise to be had with running the mobile transports on site, he said he thinks the cranes are a “different story.”

“Those guys that run those rigs are 20- and 30-year members of the union,” Brothers said. “You don’t just take a class and run the crane. It’s not that easy — not something you can just jump into and perform the work.”

Peter Olsen, ILA Local 1411 business manager and spokesman, in an interview on Tuesday, said ILA workers have evolved and adapted to new technology for the past century and the new equipment being brought in from overseas for the new offshore wind hubs is no different.

Reached on Friday, Olsen declined to comment on the ongoing situation between the ILA and Ørsted but confirmed longshoremen were back at work.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Ørsted did not comment on the status of talks with the ILA.

“Loadout activities are underway today, with the full South Fork Wind team including ILA members on the job,” the statement reads. “We expect to ship South Fork Wind’s first wind turbine out to the offshore project site in the coming days.”

g.smith@theday.com