Toyota told workers they would be getting raises across its U.S. plants — all non-union — after the United Auto Workers union reached historic tentative agreements with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

The pay raises, first reported by Labor Notes, show how unions often influence wages across entire industries.

Here’s where the UAW strike against Detroit Three stands

Non-union companies raise wages to hew close to union pay in order to stay competitive and defend against organizing efforts in their own houses. Nonunion workers with high school diplomas earn 2% to 5% more if they work in industries with at least 25% unionization, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Workers at the lower half of the income scale have seen massive wage gains in recent years, driven in part by a new labor militancy that’s sent nurses, auto workers, social workers and teachers to the picket lines, while UPS workers used the threat of a strike to win big raises. Union workers won 6.6% raises on average in 2023, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law.

Non-union automakers are unlikely to fully match the significant increase in wages and benefits secured in the UAW agreements, however. The Ford deal, for example, includes a 25% general raise over about 4.5 years, 10% employer contribution to retirement plans, profit sharing, $5,000 ratification bonus, $1,500 voucher toward new vehicle purchase, cost-of-living increases, faster wage progression, and more.

With the wind at his back, UAW President Shawn Fain says they’ll try again to expand to other manufacturers like Tesla, Toyota, Honda or Volkswagen.

“One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” Fain said. “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with a Big Three, but with a Big Five or Big Six.”

Doing so is key to the union’s future, as automakers continue to expand operations in the South.

The task seems Sisyphean given the repeated failures by the union to get a toe-hold at foreign automakers with plants in southern states with political leaders and laws hostile to unions.

In 2014, Volkswagen didn’t oppose the union drive at its plant in Chattanooga, but Republican legislators threatened to cut off future incentives if workers voted to unionize. Workers rejected the union then and again in 2019.

But the UAW has also struggled to organize workers at a Tesla plant in union-friendly California, where CEO Elon Musk was found to have violated federal labor law, according to the National Labor Relations Board, by threatening staff on Twitter. The company also fired a union supporter and “coercively interrogated” others. Musk sent the tweet in 2018; it is still being litigated along with other allegations of illegal union busting.

For the moment, organized labor can celebrate what increasingly looks like a banner year for unions — a rarity since the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.

A version of this story first ran in the Advance‘s sister outlet, the Minnesota Reformer.