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The UAW EVs
President Biden is fond of saying, “ I’m a union guy.” He’s also a “car guy,” as he boasted last week before racing down a test track in a camouflaged version of Ford’s new F-150 Lightning electric pickup.
Biden is making a big push to produce electric vehicles and batteries in the U.S. with “good-paying union jobs.” But the details of how that’s all going to work are still fuzzy.
While EVs like the Lightning or General Motors’s electric Hummer will be made in union assembly plants, the factories that make the batteries to power those cars are still an open question.
Last week, Ford announced it will build two new battery plants in the U.S. through a joint venture with South Korea’s SK Innovation. On the union question, Ford Chief Operating Officer Lisa Drake said the company’s labor strategy wasn’t defined yet. It’ll be determined later this summer, she said, once the joint venture is set up.
GM, perhaps wanting to remain in Biden’s good graces, especially as Democrats push for electric-car subsidies for consumers, took it upon itself to state publicly this week that the UAW “would be well positioned to represent the workforce” at its Ultium battery plant with LG Energy Solution. The companies plan to invest $2.3 billion to build a new battery plant in Tennessee, on top of the one they’re building in Lordstown, Ohio, near the site of a former GM plant.
LG Energy, an offshoot of LG Chem, said it stands by GM's comments. GM can’t unilaterally make a decision about a 50-50 joint venture.
Recent history has been less encouraging for labor. SK’s Georgia plant, which supplies batteries for the electric F-150 and Volkswagen ID.4, is non-union. So is LG’s factory in Michigan, which was subsidized by the Obama administration and sells batteries to GM and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler).
Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California, which once hosted a unionized joint venture between GM and Toyota, is not a union shop today. While a blue state like California would seem to be fertile territory for the UAW, Tesla and the union have not been friendly.
Foreign carmakers in the south are an even harder nut for the union to crack. The UAW has lost two elections at VW’s plant in Tennessee, the latest in 2019. It also suffered a defeat at a Nissan plant in Mississippi two years earlier.
Despite the union’s rocky track record, President Biden is giving the UAW hope. Organized labor has been using its close relationship with the president to pressure the carmakers, especially because it’s concerned that non-union battery companies could replace unionized suppliers that make engine and transmission parts.
“Ford has a moral obligation, regardless of any joint venture arrangement, to ensure that the battery jobs that replace gas engine and transmission jobs are the same good paying union jobs that have fueled this American economy for generations,” the UAW said after Ford announced its battery plans.
The UAW “couldn’t have a better advocate in the White House than this president,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “But it’s still uncertain how this all plays out.”
Before You Go
Unmanned missions to the red planet over the decades have generated loads of information about the possibility of life on Mars. The presence of water ice, especially, has fueled expectations that a human landing could happen. But could it? And if so, by when? Of the many projects with just this endgame underway, it’s no surprise that Elon Musk’s plan is arguably the most ambitious. As Bruce Einhorn writes, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies wants to send humans this decade. Musk said in an interview last year he was confident a crewed mission could take place in 2026. The world is watching.
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