The United Auto Workers recently made progress in its campaign to organize workers across the EV sector––but the next four years are likely to be challenging for organized labor with a less friendly administration in power.
The UAW announced in November that a “supermajority of workers” at a joint-venture EV battery plant in Kentucky had signed cards indicating their support for unionization and taking their organizing campaign public (the union didn’t specify how many workers had signed, and workers would still have to vote to join the union). The plant, called BlueOval SK, is part of a joint venture between Ford and South Korean battery manufacturer SK On.
In a statement, BlueOval SK HR Director Neva Burke said, “We are excited about our future and strive to maintain our direct relationship with our employees.”
The news comes on the heels of recent gains the UAW has made at Ultium Cells, a joint venture that produces batteries for General Motors’ EVs. Ultium workers at a plant in Ohio ratified their first contract in June, and workers at an Ultium plant in Tennessee joined the UAW in September.
“The ability of the UAW to successfully organize the Ford joint-venture battery plant in Kentucky is a major milestone,” Harley Shaiken, a labor expert and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, told Tech Brew. Still, he acknowledged that “it’s still very much an uphill climb for the future.”
“Tough moment” ahead: A second Trump administration is likely to make the UAW’s efforts to organize hundreds of thousands of workers at foreign-owned auto plants and EV manufacturers more difficult.
“This is going to be a very tough administration for the union to deal with. We saw that in Trump’s first term,” Shaiken said. “In his second term, with President-elect Trump being far more familiar with how things work, it could be even tougher.”
Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business
Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.
Trump could, for example, appoint National Labor Relations Board members who are less friendly to organized labor than those appointed under President Biden.
The UAW has a contentious relationship with Trump; the president-elect and UAW President Shawn Fain have traded criticisms and insults, and the union mounted a large campaign to support Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election.
In the wake of the election, Fain issued a statement saying that the union’s “fight remains the same” regardless of who’s in power: “It’s time for Washington, DC, to put up or shut up, no matter the party, no matter the candidate.”
Meanwhile, Volkswagen workers are in the process of negotiating their first contract after winning a union election earlier this year. The UAW now represents some 4,300 workers at a VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
But the union’s efforts to organize workers at plants owned by automakers like Toyota and Hyundai have faltered, the Wall Street Journal reported last month, following the UAW’s loss of an election at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama in May.
Shaiken said wins at EV battery plants could help the union make its case. Organizing these workers is a key priority for the union, he explained, because despite some bumps in the road, electrification is still regarded as the auto industry’s future. The UAW is keen to shore up its membership and secure working conditions and pay on par with what traditional union autoworkers enjoy.
“We’re on the cusp of some very large changes in the politics and economy of the United States, in a very uncertain world,” Shaiken said. “For labor, it’s a tough moment, but labor has often done its most impressive work when the obstacles were very real.”