By Nora Eckert
DETROIT (Reuters) – The United Auto Employees union is petitioning the Nationwide Labor Relations Board to carry an election at a Ford Motor (NYSE:) joint-venture battery plant in Kentucky, the union stated in a launch Wednesday.
The BlueOval SK plant, owned by a partnership of South Korea’s SK On and Ford, is the newest battery battleground for the union because it seeks to develop its lowering membership and safe jobs because the trade electrifies.
UAW President Shawn Fain has sought to broaden on a historic win final yr at a Volkswagen (ETR:) plant in Tennessee. The labor group hasn’t gained a major vote since, struggling a defeat at a Mercedes plant in Alabama in Could.
The UAW invested $40 million final yr to prepare non-union automakers throughout the US, a push that included corporations equivalent to Tesla (NASDAQ:) and Toyota (NYSE:).
Battery vegetation partly owned by Detroit’s automakers have been a serious sticking level throughout the union’s six-week strike towards Ford, Basic Motors (NYSE:) and Jeep-maker Stellantis (NYSE:) in late 2023.
The union beforehand notched victories with Ultium Cells, a three way partnership between GM and LG Power Answer at vegetation in Ohio and Tennessee. In June 2024, the union reached a tentative contract at an Ohio GM battery plant, and in September, GM agreed to acknowledge the union at an Ultium plant in Tennessee.
Corporations can conform to voluntarily acknowledge employees as soon as a majority signal playing cards supporting unionization, which is what occurred with the Ultium facility in Tennessee. In instances the place the corporate doesn’t agree to do that, there’s an election, overseen by the NLRB, the place employees should vote by majority to unionize.
A union can file a petition for such an election after amassing signatures from at 30% of employees, in keeping with the NLRB. The UAW stated in November {that a} “supermajority” of employees on the Kentucky facility signed playing cards indicating their assist for becoming a member of the union, with out specifying the share.
An election date has not but been set, but it surely usually takes a number of weeks between when the union recordsdata for an election and when it’s held.
Whereas the union obtained assist from President Joe Biden, together with in-person at one among its picket traces throughout the strike, Fain and president-elect Donald Trump have a extra contentious relationship. The incoming president has stated the union chief needs to be fired, and Fain stated earlier than the election that if Trump gained, it might be a “full catastrophe for the working class.”
