Call it the Great Reset. Across the US, labor unions are winning surprisingly large contract settlements as workers have reset their expectations to demand considerably more than they did just a few years ago, and that has in turn pressured many corporations to reset \u2013 and increase \u2013 the pay packages they are giving in union contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result has been a wave of impressive \u2013 sometimes eye-popping \u2013 union contracts over the past year, far more generous than in recent decades. In August, 15,000 American Airlines pilots won pay increases of 46% over four years<\/a>. In a huge labor confrontation last summer, 340,000 Teamster members at UPS won raises<\/a> of $7.50 an hour over five years, with drivers\u2019 pay climbing to $49 an hour and part-time workers receiving a pay increase of 48% on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a three-day strike earlier this month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers<\/a> won raises of 21%, as well as a $25 minimum wage for Kaiser\u2019s workers in California. In March, 30,000 Los Angeles school district workers<\/a> \u2013 bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers\u2019 aides \u2013 won a 30% wage hike over four years. In Oregon, 1,400 nurses at Providence Portland<\/a> hospital secured raises between 17% and 27% over two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Union leaders and rank-and-file workers hailed these contracts as great and historic, but Thomas Kochan, a longtime professor of industrial relations at MIT, put it another way: \u201cAll this reflects a a reset in expectations and wage norms for workers and for employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese successes,\u201d Kochan continued, \u201care a reflection of the workforce\u2019s strong expectations and the workforce\u2019s demands to make up for lost ground due to inflation \u2013 and to signal that times have changed. The modest wage increases of the past will no longer be adequate to deal with our situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers are feeling not only rising expectations, but also rising frustration and anger, seeing corporate profits and CEO pay soar, while their pay has often failed to keep up with inflation. The United Auto Workers, before going on strike a month ago against GM, Ford and Stellantis, kept hammering the point that auto workers\u2019 hourly pay has trailed inflation by 19%<\/a> since 2008, while CEO pay has jumped by 40%. The union\u2019s initial bargaining proposal was for a 46% raise, far more than the union won from Detroit\u2019s automakers in 2019 \u2013 a four-year contract<\/a> with raises of 3% in the second and fourth years and a 4% lump sum (but no raise) in years one and three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve talked with labor relations people at several companies,\u201d Kochan said, \u201cand they have had to get their CEOs and CFOs [chief financial officers] to reset their expectations. They were used to getting modest wage settlements, but they haven\u2019t experienced this level of pressure from unions and they haven\u2019t experienced this amount of bargaining power on the side of workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feeling angry and emboldened, workers have been flexing their muscles. There were 301 strikes in the first nine months of his year, up from 172 over the same period in 2021, according t0 ILR Labor Action Tracker<\/a>. This has ratcheted up pressure on employers, and this increased militancy has often translated into better contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a moment quite like this. I\u2019ve never seen this level of action and enthusiasm among workers, especially among young workers,\u201d said Lane Windham, associate director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. \u201cPeople drew a line in terms of their expectations. For 40 years, workers have been putting up with low wages and bad jobs. But after coming through the pandemic, many people said: \u2018I\u2019m not going to do this any more. I\u2019m not going to put up with this any more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Windham said many employers had been surprised by the level of labor militancy they are encountering. \u201cEmployers are entering negotiations and beginning with their old calculations, but they\u2019re seeing this is not business as usual. They\u2019ve had to recalibrate what they\u2019re willing to give.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That has been the case with Hollywood\u2019s studios, which didn\u2019t expect 165,000 television and movie actors and 15,000 Hollywood writers to go on strike at the same time. Before the Writers Guild\u2019s members walked out<\/a>, Hollywood\u2019s studios dug in against that union\u2019s demands, but after the writers were out nearly five months, the studios largely acceded to the union\u2019s wishes on pay, minimum staffing levels for writers and limiting the use of artificial intelligence in scripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are three main factors driving the big contract wins,\u201d said Eric Blanc, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University. \u201cOne is the tight labor market. Second is increased union momentum generally. Third is more effective and militant bargaining methods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blanc added: \u201cYou can\u2019t underestimate how crucial the tight labor market has been and continues to be for giving workers leverage. In the past if you were on strike for an extended period and the labor market wasn\u2019t tight, employers could replace you easily. For years, unions were reluctant to go on strike because of that. But today\u2019s tight labor market is important for giving workers and unions confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tight labor market has encouraged unions to think and act bigger and bolder. \u201cIf you\u2019re not thinking big gains, there\u2019s probably something wrong with what you\u2019re doing as a union,\u201d Blanc said. \u201cPeople see that they can fight back and really get corporate America to cough up concessions to workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even as workers at companies with long-established unions rack up big gains, workers at some prominent, newly unionized companies, most notably Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe\u2019s, are struggling to reach their first contract to win improved pay and benefits. But some newly unionized workers have won excellent contracts: this month more than 3,800 graduate student workers at MIT<\/a> won a 12.6% increase in their stipend, a $10,000 needs-based childcare subsidy and an 84% dental subsidy. At the Whitney Museum in New York, the 180-member union won a 30% raise on average<\/a> in its first contract, with entry-level pay jumping to $54,100 from $40,500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, said the fact that unions have their strongest public approval in more than 50 years \u2013 not to mention a US president who bills himself as the\u00a0most pro-union president<\/a>\u00a0ever \u2013 has created an atmosphere that helps unions do well in their contract fights. \u201cThey\u2019re winning the public opinion war and they\u2019re building on other union victories,\u201d Wong said. \u201cVictories inspire other victories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n