After a six-week strike, United Autoworkers came to a tentative contract agreement with the three biggest automakers in the country that includes workers’ biggest pay raises in decades. But the rewards won’t only be felt by UAW members — the strike’s impact could be felt across the entire auto industry.

“Potentially the most far-reaching effect of the strike could be on manufacturing workers not represented by the UAW. The contracts the union negotiated are the latest in a series of prominent victories for organized labor, including Hollywood writers, UPS workers and even some university employees.

[UAW President] Mr. [Shawn] Fain has portrayed the tentative agreements as a signal for the union to begin organizing drives at Tesla, which dominates the fast-growing electric car business, and foreign-owned companies like Toyota, Honda and BMW that have large nonunion operations in the United States. The union will ‘organize like we’ve never organized before,’ Mr. Fain said Sunday.

Companies without unions can expect the U.A.W. to deploy the same hardball tactics that Mr. Fain used against Ford, G.M. and Stellantis, including rhetorical attacks on multimillion-dollar executive pay and hourly wages that have failed to keep pace with high inflation.

Even if those union campaigns fail, as they often have in the past, they may prompt some employers to pre-emptively give workers raises.

‘This agreement is going to have a trickle-down effect,’ said Helen Rella, who specializes in employment litigation at Wilk Auslander, a New York law firm.”

Read the whole story at the New York Times.