ANALYSIS: Is a 36% Raise Too High? It Wasn’t for These 23 CBAs

The striking United Auto Workers’ demand that the Big 3 automakers provide a 36% wage increase over four years sounds like an order that could be too big to fill. But a raise that size isn’t unheard of in the current supercharged atmosphere of union wage negotiations.

An analysis of Bloomberg Law’s database of negotiated wage and benefit changes has identified 23 collective bargaining agreements in the past 12 months alone that boosted workers’ pay by more than than 36% from start to finish (with lump-sum payments included).

The highest overall pay increase on the list belongs to Teamsters-represented pilots ...