Posts tagged LG Energy
UAW says majority of workers at Ford joint-venture battery plant sign union cards
November 22, 2024 // The UAW said a "supermajority" of workers at the Ford Kentucky battery plant had signed union cards indicating their support. It did not specify the percentage. "We want to maintain a direct relationship with our employees," BlueOval SK Human Resources Director Neva Burke said in a statement. Ford directed Reuters to BlueOval SK for comment.
Gotion floats $24-an-hour average wage as it seeks non-union plant
August 9, 2023 // “The kickoff is not intended to be union,” Thelen said of workers in the plant. “If the workers are unhappy and they wish to unionize, obviously we respect the right to do so. But our preference is that we make our workers so happy that they feel they don’t need a union, and that’s the way you should collaborate with your workforce.”
The Morning Shift: UAW Faces An Uphill Fight On Unionizing Battery Plants
June 9, 2023 // While workers at the Ultium are organized and fighting for a contract, once agreed it won’t be applicable to workers at other EV facilities. Instead, UAW will have to run organizing drives and bargain locally at each site. Meanwhile, Ford has plans for three sites with SK On and one with Chinese partner CATL in Michigan; Stellantis will open a new plant with Samsung SDI in 2025; and GM has three U.S. battery plants coming with Korean partners, so the UAW will have its work cut out for it.
AUTOS UAW withholding Biden reelection endorsement until EV concerns are addressed
May 5, 2023 // Leaders of the United Auto Workers are withholding a reelection endorsement for President Joe Biden until the union’s concerns about the auto industry’s transition to all-electric vehicles are addressed. UAW President Shawn Fain says the union wants a “just transition” for workers, as the government uses taxpayer money to subsidize the EV industry. This doesn’t mean the historically Democratic union is backing a Republican. In the Tuesday letter, Fain also noted “another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.”
United Auto Workers union membership rose 3% in 2022 to 383,000
April 5, 2023 // Membership in the United Auto Workers union rose 3% in 2022 to 383,000 as it works to organize workers in battery plants and other electric vehicle components. Last month, Shawn Fain won a closely contested race against incumbent Ray Curry for UAW president by fewer than 500 votes out of about 140,000 cast. Fain said last week the union was ready to go to war against "employers who refuse to give our members their fair share."
UAW Election Results Delayed to “Challenged” Ballots
March 7, 2023 // The outcome will be decided by 1,608 “challenged ballots.” The court-appointed monitor is determining whether the challenged ballots come from eligible voters. In many cases, the voters never included the number of their Local Union on the ballot. In other cases, the elections officer appointed by the monitor was unable to determine if the voter appeared on a list of a local union’s list of active or retired members, observers said. “The independent monitor is continuing to conduct the vote count process. No outcome has been determined,” the Curry Solidarity Team said in a Facebook post. “This is a process that make take a while,” Members United noted. So far, the elections officer has counted 137,591 votes and Fain, boosted by the fallout from a scandal, is leading by 645 votes, according to the unofficial results compiled by the monitor, who was appointed in the wake of the recent scandal during which a dozen union officials were sent to prison.
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.
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.
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.