Workers at an Ohio plant that makes batteries for General Motors voted to become the first unionized factory originally built for electric vehicles and components, the United Auto Workers said Friday.
Employees at Ultium Cells, a joint venture of GM and LG Energy Solution in Warren, Ohio, voted 710 to 16 to join UAW. That gives the powerful union a foothold in the new wave of EV component and assembly plants unleashed by historic clean-energy investments pushed by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress.
“If the companies that are being given huge subsidies to fight climate change from the federal government are using that money to pull jobs out of the industrial heartland and moving them somewhere else, it will be impossible to sustain the middle class and fight climate change,” said Damon Silvers, a visiting professor at University College London and the former policy director of the AFL-CIO.“This is the thing that I think is missing in the environmental discourse about climate change.
“If that plant is not a UAW plant, it is a symbol with a spotlight on it of the deterioration of the UAW’s grasp on autoworkers,” said Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “If it is a UAW plant, it is a symbol of the UAW extending its power and relevance into EV battery plants, the future.”
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