Kentucky Battery Plant Workers Launch Union Drive with UAW

Blue Oval battery workers attend a campaign kick off meeting. Photo: UAW.

https://labornotes.org/2024/11/kentucky-battery-plant-workers-launch-union-drive-uaw

November 21, 2024 / Luis Feliz Leon

A majority of the 1,000 auto workers at the car battery park Blue Oval in Glendale, Kentucky, have signed union cards to join the United Auto Workers.

The battery park, a joint venture between Ford and South Korea’s SK On, is expected to ramp up hiring to 5,000 hourly workers by 2030. It has twin battery plants. But the second one is on hold due to low demand for electric vehicles. At the first plant, workers are testing battery module packs from facilities in Georgia, as the plant prepares to become fully operational next year.

Since he started last year, Chad Johnson has seen co-workers suffer mild heart attacks and respiratory problems, apparently from exposure to chemicals. He has seen workers carried out on stretchers with broken pelvises from tripping on exposed wiring, because they are working in what is still an active construction site.

The organizing “has moved more quickly than expected,” said Johnson, a quality control technician and a former UAW Local 3047 member at a nearby Ford supplier. “There were originally six of us. That grew to about 15. Now there’s an organizing committee of about 70.”

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