Labor Unrest in 2024 Poised to Leverage Union Contract Gains

After a year of record-breaking strikes, expiring contracts in 2024 signal another significant but likely smaller potential wave of labor unrest.

More than 1.1 million workers are covered by large union contracts that are due to end this year, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of filings with the federal mediation service. But two of the largest groups, involving 200,000 US postal workers and 115,000 rail workers, are in sectors where strikes are severely restricted or banned altogether, limiting the possibility of large-scale walkouts.

And yet a combined 55,000 workers in two of the largest public school ...