Not that anyone here needs the reminder, but

Every pay bump is an admission of guilt

The answer, of course, is that the money was already there. Your boss was just taking it instead of giving it to you. This is the simple but critical point that we all should chew on. Because when you chew on it, the flavor of revolution leaks out into your gums, real sweet. Every celebration of a union’s hard-fought gains in a strike or in bitter contract negotiations should be accompanied by an equal and opposite condemnation of the company itself for making its own valued “team members” go through such a struggle just to get what was clearly there all along.