ANALYSIS: Which Union Workers Will Be Hit Hardest by Pay Cuts?

For the first time in four years, management and labor are ratifying collective bargaining agreements that cut workers’ wages.

Bloomberg Law’s database of wage settlements has identified three contracts since March that have called for decreases in first-year pay rates. Three might not sound like a large number, but it is by recent standards: No pay-cutting contracts were reported in 2017, 2018, or 2019. And it could portend a looming shift by unionized employers to not just freeze or curtail raises, but to reverse them.

With that omen in mind, I have analyzed our data from 2002 to the ...