Unions Won Well-Deserved Pay Hikes in 2023
Collective bargaining can be added to the list of areas in which US unions scaled new heights in 2023, along with organizing and striking.
Union contracts negotiated in 2023 gave workers an average first-year wage increase of 6.6%, the highest average pay raise for any year since Bloomberg Law began tracking union wage settlements in 1988.
With signing bonuses and other lump-sum payments added to the calculations, 2023’s average first-year wage increase was 7.3%, also a record high, according to Bloomberg Law’s latest Quarterly Union Wage Data report.
The 2023 calculations are based on Bloomberg Law’s analysis of wage changes that were reported in 952 union contracts ratified last year, covering a total of approximately 2.8 million union-represented workers nationwide.
Union-secured wages have surged since 2020, as labor negotiators have called their management counterparts to account for cost-cutting moves made during the pandemic and economic shutdown. Indeed, the 6.6% average pay raise provided by contracts signed in 2023 more than doubled 2020’s average (3.1%).