Posts tagged Department of Energy
UAW workers at Stellantis could strike over Illinois plant reopening
August 20, 2024 // Last month, the U.S. Energy Department said it planned to award Stellantis $334.8 million to convert the shuttered Belvidere Assembly plant to build EVs and $250 million to convert its Indiana Transmission Plant in Kokomo to produce EV components. The UAW said since 2023 "the company has gone back on its product commitments at Belvidere, and has been unreceptive in talks with the union to stay on track." The UAW added "this glaring violation of the contract imperils all of the other investment commitments the company has made."
Whitmer joined by Granholm, Slotkin and Fain to announce EV battery training program
March 27, 2024 // “To bring together this front row here of just, I’m sorry, bad asses,” said Slotkin to laughter from the crowd. “I have to say the beauty of being a legislator is when you get to see the stuff that you vote on, actually matter in your own district, in your own state.” The stuff to which Slotkin was referring was the $5 million investment by the Department of Energy for the Battery Workforce Initiative that will, according to a release, “support up to five pilot training programs in energy and automotive communities and advance workforce partnerships between industry and labor for the domestic lithium battery supply chain.” While the $5 million is just a small fraction of the $1.2 bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by Biden in 2021, Whitmer said it was a key piece of the strategy to keep the U.S., as well as Michigan, at the forefront of electric vehicle manufacturing.
Electric Vehicle Factories Are Overwhelmingly Nonunion. The UAW Strike Could Change That.
September 20, 2023 // Nonunion companies are also getting in on the EV facility boomlet. Tesla plans to expand to a lithium refinery in Texas and produce battery cells, packs, and modules in California and Texas. Other companies investing in battery plants include BMW (South Carolina), Honda (Ohio), Hyundai (Georgia), Mercedes-Benz (Alabama), Toyota (North Carolina), Volkswagen (Ontario, Canada), and Volvo (South Carolina). The construction boom continues in nonunion plants. A variety of battery manufacturers are building new facilities, too. These include the Japanese company AESC (Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina), the Chinese-owned Gotion (Michigan), South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (Arizona and Michigan) the start-up Our Next Energy (Michigan), Japanese-owned Panasonic (Kansas), South Korean SK Battery America (Georgia), and Redwood Materials, a recycling company (Nevada and South Carolina).
Op-ed: With fewer workers choosing unions, administration turns to taxpayer dollars to boost union ranks
September 19, 2023 // First, some solicitations for grants, such as under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean School Bus” program, ask whether applicants will recognize card check certifications. Card check is a process where workers are denied the chance to vote for or against a union by private ballot. Instead, union organizers are allowed to repeatedly pressure them to sign cards, in public. Both the text of the National Labor Relations Act and numerous court rulings (including by the Supreme Court) have recognized that private ballots are far superior to signature cards in determining workers’ true feelings about unionizing. Apparently, the administration thinks “free and fair” means a free and fair chance for organizers to pressure workers into saying “yes.” Second, many grant solicitations, such as those under the Department of Energy’s “Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training,” “encourage” applicants to remain neutral in organizing campaigns. What this means is that employers are being asked to waive their statutory right to discuss the potential negatives of unionizing with workers. Instead, workers will get just one side of the story — that of the union. With no other source of information, workers might just decide to say yes, especially when being pressured to sign a card. Third, some applications, such as those published by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency to build broadband, ask applicants to sign labor peace agreements. Labor peace certainly sounds desirable, but here’s what it means in practice. Let’s say a union decides it wants to represent the workers of a particular grantee. Upon notice of that intent, the grantee would have to get the union to sign a labor peace agreement, which typically includes a “no-strike” pledge among other provisions. The catch is that if the union doesn’t sign, you don’t get your grant. This gives the union tremendous leverage to demand organizing concessions, most notably things like card check and neutrality.
The United Auto Workers Meet Electrification
August 22, 2023 // LeRoy and Whiton calculated in their report that battery factory subsidies will range from $2 million to $7 million per job over the ten-year duration of the 45X program. One of their case studies is the $3.5 billion BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan. So far, the facility has been awarded $1.7 billion in state and local government subsidies, in addition to qualifying for an expected $6.7 billion in federal 45X credits. Yet wages at the battery plant will average around $45,000 a year. The gap between the sheer amount of money on the table for manufacturers and the quality of job it translates into is the IRA’s weakest link. “The states where these facilities are located should be publicly saying that in exchange for such subsidies the company should allow for voluntary [union] recognition votes,” LeRoy suggested.
OP-ED: BIDEN IS INVESTING IN GREEN ENERGY ACROSS THE SOUTH — THROWING SWING STATE UNION WORKERS UNDER THE BUS
July 12, 2023 // The success of the climate program will require continued federal commitment. Biden is placing a bet that clean energy investments could ultimately work the same way as the military-industrial complex. The military and its allied contractors have made sure to set up bases and/or manufacturing facilities in nearly every congressional district in the country, with extra attention paid to areas represented by key lawmakers. That has produced durable support for ever-expanding military budgets. Whether the same could be accomplished for the clean energy industry is an open question, but so far, Republicans from districts that have won federal awards have nevertheless voted to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which funds the tax breaks. By subsidizing the decline of union jobs, the Biden administration risks empowering lawmakers who will then move to end the subsidies altogether. “The total lack of consideration for workers could certainly make the difference in 2024.” “What Biden is doing is politically insane, environmentally bankrupt, and it’s poor economics,” Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and board member of Our Revolution, told The Intercept.
UAW boss warns of race to the bottom in electric vehicle transition
July 12, 2023 // “Not only is the federal government not using its power to turn the tide – they’re actively funding the race to the bottom with billions in public money,” Fain wrote. “These companies are extremely profitable and will continue to make money hand over fist whether they’re selling combustion engines or EVs. Yet the workers get a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.” Electric vehicle jobs, like the 7,500 that will be created at the Kentucky and Tennessee Ford facilities, are “low-road jobs” that offer “no consideration for wages, working conditions, union rights or retirement security,” the union leader said.
Federal Employee Union Membership is Up 20%
March 29, 2023 // The task force asked federal agencies to foster collaborative relationships with their union partners, involve labor organizations in predecisional policy discussions, and remove barriers from unions trying to increase their membership or organize new bargaining units. The group recommended that the Office of Personnel Management instruct agencies to provide information on whether job openings are represented by unions and encourage agencies to provide unions more opportunities to communicate with new hires. In a blog post last week, the vice president’s office announced that just a year after agencies began implementing the task force’s recommendations, the initiative is already paying dividends: over the last year, nearly 80,000 federal employees have joined a union, increasing the total number of dues paying union members at federal agencies by 20%. And in the private sector, petitions for union representation increased 53% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022, while overall union membership grew by 273,000 last year.