The GM Ultium battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, has voted to unionize. That is the 2nd GM battery plant to unionize – however this one is completely different as a result of it’s in Tennessee, the place unions are much less fashionable.
Unions have been seeing numerous power within the US currently, with pro-union sentiment at historic highs within the US.
The UAW has been each contributing to and driving this wave of union assist in pushing for unionization throughout the US auto trade, notably within the realm of electrical automobiles and battery vegetation.
Its first huge win was when GM’s first Ultium plant voted overwhelmingly to hitch UAW in 2022. Then, throughout UAW strike negotiations in 2023, Ultium employees gained their proper to be positioned underneath the union grasp settlement, that means higher pay and protections for battery employees.
UAW’s strike success led to pay raises throughout the trade, even for nonunion employees, displaying how union wins can buoy pay throughout bigger populations.
This string of wins appears to have earned the eye of the GM Ultium battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, as a majority of the 1,000 employees there signed union playing cards indicating that they need to be a part of UAW, as introduced at the moment by the union. UAW factors out that GM and LG (who’re companions within the Ultium Cells enterprise) didn’t intervene with the union vote and has agreed to acknowledge the union.
The Spring Hill location is the second Ultium plant to start out manufacturing, which it did earlier this 12 months. It follows Lordstown, which began manufacturing and unionized in 2022. Right this moment’s announcement signifies that each of GM’s currently-operating vegetation have voted to unionize.
One other plant in Lansing, Michigan is simply ending development and will begin producing cells by the top of this 12 months. Employees at this plant haven’t but voted both method on whether or not to hitch UAW.
Spring Hill’s determination is notable on account of its location within the US South, which is traditionally extra union-hostile than the North. That is a part of the rationale that many automotive corporations have opened factories there – due to the dearth of unionization, labor protections and pay scales are decrease.
Nonetheless, we’ve seen some indicators of this altering. In April of this 12 months, the VW plant in Chattanooga, TN voted to unionize. This plant had been VW’s solely manufacturing facility worldwide to not have a collective bargaining settlement in place, and the vote marked the primary time a overseas automaker’s plant voted to unionize within the US.
We additionally noticed a newly-unionized Blue Chicken faculty bus manufacturing facility in Georgia, the place electrical faculty buses will likely be made.
Momentum faltered when a Mercedes EV plant in Alabama declined to hitch UAW after Mercedes introduced in anti-union companies to sway the vote. And 6 Southern governors – together with Kay Ivey of Alabama, who signed an anti-union legislation in the course of the Mercedes voting interval – made a joint assertion to encourage employees in opposition to looking for higher labor protections that union membership would carry them.
However now, momentum could also be again within the palms of UAW, after this Spring Hill vote succeeded at the moment. And it could possibly be a giant deal, given the growing “battery belt” within the US South, the place many corporations have determined to construct battery vegetation, with a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in funding and a whole lot of hundreds of jobs on the docket. If different factories see the success at GM, they may begin getting their very own concepts and unionization might unfold by way of the trade.
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