DETROIT — The United Auto Workers is intensifying its fight against General Motors Co. and partner LG Energy Solution for the "high risk and low pay" it is offering the workforce at its Ultium Cells LLC joint-venture battery cell plant in Warren, Ohio.
In a white paper about the plant to be broadly released on Monday, the union is upping its criticism of battery-plant pay and working conditions, saying the "hazardous conditions and low wages show standards must be raised at battery cell plants getting billions in taxpayer dollars."
GM's joint-venture battery plants with LG and Samsung, as well as the battery plants planned by Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV, are emerging as a top concern for the UAW as it prepares to enter negotiations for a new contract with the Detroit Three. Battery projects also have become a flashpoint between the union and the Biden White House, with union leaders arguing the administration hasn't done enough to ensure generous federal subsidies for the plants and the components they build are tied to high wages and benefits for workers.
As the only unionized (but without an inaugural contract) battery plant in operation, the would-be contractual template covering the Ultium Cells facility in northeast Ohio is likely to be central to the economic futures of battery plant workers. Worker pay and treatment there is fueling the UAW to push for change before more of the battery plants pop up throughout the country.
"The Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — are taking billions of dollars in government subsidies to go electric, but those benefits aren't trickling down to UAW members," UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video posted this week by the union.
Ultium could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
The first Ultium Cells facility in Warren, Ohio, opened in 2022 — a few years after GM closed its Lordstown Assembly Plant located next to the new Ultium plant, sending economic shockwaves through the surrounding Mahoning Valley.
The new Warren facility is the first of three Ultium Cells facilities planned. An Ultium Cells plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, will open later this year. A third plant is under construction in Delta Township near Lansing and will open in 2024. GM is also planning a joint-venture battery plant with Samsung SDI for New Carlisle, Indiana. That facility is slated to open in 2026.
The joint-venture battery plants do not fall under the national master agreements the UAW has with the Detroit Three, meaning the union will have to organize the plants separately.
In December 2022, Ultium workers in Warren overwhelmingly voted in favor of unionizing with the UAW. Workers told The Detroit News at the time their primary concerns were wages and safety. Production associates make $16.50 per hour. GM workers under the national agreement will make $32.32 per hour by the contract's September expiration.
Ultium and the UAW began negotiations earlier this year, but newly elected union leaders have since talked with members about the benefits of being part of the master agreement with GM, which the company is likely to resist because Ultium is a separate company and because doing so could risk establishing higher labor costs compared to non-union rivals.
In the video posted this week, Fain said: "A new industry is being born, new standards are being set. This is our defining moment. It's not just about Lordstown. The Big Three are building joint-venture battery plants in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee. And everywhere our message is the same: Our communities and our country deserve good, safe, living-wage union jobs. It's time to build an EV industry that puts workers first."
Safety problems highlighted
The UAW's white paper highlights specific safety issues at the Warren plant.
Ultium Production Maintenance Technician Gavin Currey writes about getting sprayed with a "toxic" electrolyte in the face while working in the degas area at the plant: “I had burns in my throat," he said. "I had some burns on my face. I had a bloody nose for a couple days."
Mandy McCoy, a quality inspector for Ultium, complained of "blowing black stuff out of my nose."
Dominic Giovanonne, a former worker at the Warren plant, saw multiple fires and battery cells exploding while at the plant: "We’ve had a couple of fires inside, batteries exploding," Giovanonne wrote. "We had piping in a machine on the cathode side blow up. We had several incidents in there that could have been very traumatic. We’d been reporting issues to management about quality and machinery safety, but it wasn’t getting fixed. "
Beyond those incidents, the union says six members from Ultium’s electrolytes mixing department were suspended after objecting to an "unsafe assignment." The workers refused the "dangerous work" because of the lack of showers or wash stations available to remove electrolyte from their bodies if they were exposed.
The UAW's white paper highlights what the national contract model offers to resolve the safety "problems" at Ultium.
The national agreement, "provides for a hazardous material control committee that has the authority to prevent chemicals from coming into the workplace and, where certain hazardous materials are necessary for production, to plan for their use as safely as possible before they enter the workplace," according to the paper.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has four open investigations at the Ultium plant that include air quality inside the facility. But the agency does not release any preliminary information on open investigations and by law has six months to complete such probes, spokesperson Scott Allen told The Detroit News.
Plant leaders recently halted the degas process, which is vital to battery production, while Ultium assessed emissions equipment, The News previously reported. The company worked with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and has restarted the process.
UAW's tension with Biden
The white paper reflects ongoing tension between the leading autoworkers' union and the Biden administration, which President Joe Biden has billed as the "the most pro-union administration in American history."
The UAW has said that the administration hasn't done enough to tie billions of dollars in federal subsidies for electric vehicle production to unionization and to high wage and safety standards.
Following Fain's recent visit to Washington, the union issued a letter to employees saying it would withhold its endorsement for the Democratic president's re-election campaign in 2024 if the administration did not change its approach toward offering billions in incentives with "no strings attached." The letter was first reported by The News in May.
Last year, Democrats in Washington passed the Inflation Reduction Act, sweeping legislation that will push $400 billion in new spending and offer tax breaks for clean energy production. Companies producing electric vehicles, batteries and their components will be some of the major beneficiaries.
The IRA included a $35 tax credit for every kilowatt hour of energy produced by a battery made in the United States — a massive subsidy that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated will be worth around $30.6 billion over the next 10 years. But experts say the value is likely to be even higher due to the rapid rate of battery investments.
The IRA's investments come with prevailing wage requirements — which are often tied to union standards — for construction, alterations or repairs of federally-funded facilities. But they do not have similar requirements for factory operations once they're up-and-running.
The UAW's white paper argued that Ultium's Ohio plant exemplifies how the government's unprecedented funding of EV-related manufacturing will support dangerous conditions rather than improve working conditions in the emerging battery industry.
"Will the U.S. government’s massive investment in EV production spur the creation of high-quality union jobs that build prosperous communities? Or will those billions be used to supercharge corporate profits while subjecting workers to hazardous conditions and substandard pay?"
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UAW's report. However, Biden tweeted Friday that "every venture to manufacture clean energy technology would be made stronger by a collective bargaining relationship with our unions."
The Biden administration also recently tapped senior adviser Gene Sperling of Ann Arbor, a frequent adviser to Democratic presidents, to act as a liaison between the White House, the UAW and the Detroit Three as contract negotiations between the union and automakers approach.
"As a White House point person on key issues related to the UAW and Big 3, Sperling will help ensure Administration-wide coordination across interested parties and among White House policymakers," the White House said in a statement. "Gene will work hand-in-glove with Acting Secretary Julie Su on all labor-related issues."
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