Posts tagged electric vehicle
GM and LG Energy Solution Give Up on Fourth Joint Battery Plant in the U.S.
January 23, 2023 // GM already has one Ultium plant working in Lordstown, Ohio, and is building two others with LGES: one in Michigan and the other in Tennessee. When the United Auto Workers (UAW) decided to organize the Lordstown plant, the automaker was willing to accept a “card check” process, which would only depend on more than half of the workers wanting to unionize. LGES has one more person on Ultium’s board and refused to follow this faster process. That forced an election process that UAW won anyway. In other words, Ultium only wasted time with something the South Korean supplier may have believed it could avoid.
Reuters Analysis: Biden’s climate agenda has a problem in not enough workers
January 17, 2023 // The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year, provides for an estimated $370 billion in solar, wind and electric vehicle subsidies, according to the White House. Starting Jan. 1, American consumers can take advantage of those tax credits to upgrade home heating systems or put solar panels on their roofs. Those investments will create nearly 537,000 jobs a year for a decade, according to an analysis by BW Research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy.
Stellantis has blamed rising EV costs for idling an Illinois plant that makes Jeep Cherokee
December 14, 2022 // Stellantis said it issued WARN notices to both hourly and salaried employees. This refers to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act), which requires employers with more than 100 employees to provide 60 days’ advance written notice prior to a mass layoff that is expected to affect at least 50 employees at any single site.
Workers at new GM joint venture EV battery plant vote to join union
December 12, 2022 // Barra said Thursday that UAW representation at the Ultium Cells plants does not automatically mean the joint venture faces a cost disadvantage against nonunion competitors. But she said, "We've got to be competitive. We don't have a right to exist. We've got to be competitive to have a company and go forward. We have that conversation with employees on the floor and they get it."
Voting opens in key UAW test to organize U.S. battery plants
December 8, 2022 // Workers begin two days of voting on Wednesday to decide whether to unionize at a General Motors (GM.N)-LG Energy (373220.KS) battery cell manufacturing joint venture in Ohio. Workers at an Ultium Cells plant near Cleveland are voting on Wednesday and Thursday after the United Auto Workers (UAW) union petitioned to represent about 900 workers. Results of the election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board are expected on Friday. Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra told Bloomberg TV the company is "very supportive of the plant being unionized ... The employees are going to be voting, but we’re very supportive." In a trip to South Korea in May, President Joe Biden expressed support for workers seeking to unionize JV battery plants. The Detroit Three automakers all have battery plants in the works with South Korean partners.
Workers to vote on unionizing at new Ohio GM-LG battery plant
November 28, 2022 // Workers at Ultium Cells LLC in Warren, Ohio, will vote on 7th and 8th December after the United Auto Workers (UAW) petitioned to represent about 900 workers, said the National Labor Relations Board. The vote is a crucial test of the ability of the UAW to organize workers in the growing electric vehicle (EV) supply chain, and came after most employees signed cards authorizing the union to represent them.
GM Battery Plant Could End UAW’s Organizing Drought
November 10, 2022 // The $2.3 billion Ultium Cells plant in Northeast Ohio is critical to GM’s battery-electric-vehicle offensive, which is in danger of falling behind schedule because the automaker cannot get enough batteries to power its growing fleet of BEVs. A majority of Ultium workers have signed cards authorizing the UAW to represent them, union President Ray Curry says. The UAW has filed a petition with the Cleveland office of the National Labor Relations Board calling for an election establishing the union as the workers’ bargaining agent. Ultium Cells rejected the UAW’s request for voluntary recognition and said it would prefer a recognition election. So far there is no sign Ultium Cells and its management team, which includes several former GM employees, is preparing to run an anti-UAW campaign in the plant, Russo says.
For GM auto union workers, there’s still a lot to learn about making EVs
October 17, 2022 // As the reskilling of UAW workers continues during the Big Three automakers’ steady migration to EVs, there’s a related issue that concerns the union. Because there are fewer parts in EVs than in ICE vehicles, Volkswagen Group’s then-CEO Herbert Diess said in 2019, building an EV requires about 30% less effort, which means cutting jobs. While that figure has been repeated by other executives and researchers, there has been no empirical study to support the assertion. For its part, the UAW continues to study the matter and remains vigilant. The UAW’s current contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), ratified in September 2019, help protect workers at assembly plants like Orion that switch from ICE to EV production. Essentially, the UAW and each of the companies negotiate to bring massive EV-related investments into current UAW-represented facilities to preserve jobs at those locations and offer reskilling opportunities.
Next up for US unions: Major contracts for 700,000 workers
September 20, 2022 // Each of these unions seek not only lucrative contracts but significant changes in work rules and assurances of job security that could make it difficult to avoid work stoppages.
Stellantis CEO: ‘We have zero problem with unions’ at battery plants
September 15, 2022 // Tavares' own comments come after members of UAW Local 1166, which represents employees at Stellantis' Kokomo Casting Plant in Indiana, went on strike for almost three days over a local contract. Workers demanded repairs to the facility's heating and air-conditioning system, paid uniforms and other workplace improvements. They ratified an agreement on Monday. National contracts with both the UAW and Unifor are about a year away from their expiration date. The bargaining will mark the first for Stellantis, formed in the 2021 merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and French automaker Groupe PSA. FCA last year pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Labor Management Relations Act, subjecting it to a $30 million fine and three years of labor relations oversight by a court-appointed independent monitor, after three executives were found to have bribed UAW officials. Carlos Tavares, Samsung SDI in Kokomo,