UAW expands into second EV battery plant with vote in Tennessee

The United Auto Workers union is breaking further ground in the South after workers at a Tennessee electric vehicle battery plant voted to join the labor union .

The Spring Hill plant produces the Ultium battery found in GM’s SUVs and the new electric Acura. It is the second plant in the nation to manufacture the batteries, and it is the second Ultium plant to join a union.

General Motors, which is overseeing the plant operations, said it recognized the union.

The first Ultium plant voted to unionize in Lordstown, Ohio, in 2022, but it wasn’t until a UAW labor strike in 2023 that the Ultium workers were granted the right to be treated as GM employees, which paved the way for greater unionization of the company.

UAW President Shawn Fain has been critical of EV manufacturing jobs, accusing companies of failing to compensate workers adequately.

“The Big Three automakers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, are taking billions of dollars in government subsidies to go electric,” Fain said last year . “But those benefits aren’t trickling down to UAW members.”

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Prior to the Lordstown union vote, workers at the Ultium plant told the Hill they worked with corrosive chemicals for half the pay they earned when building internal combustion engines.

The UAW has since invested $40 million in efforts to unionize factories in the Southeast, which has become the hub for Tesla and Toyota for manufacturing EVs.