The United Automobile Workers union announced a tentative agreement Monday at an Ohio plant making batteries for electric vehicles, a move it called an important step in improving wages and safety in the chain. supply of electric vehicles.
The agreement covers 1,600 workers at a Lordstown plant operated by Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and a South Korean partner, LG Energy Solution. It produces batteries for GM electric vehicles.
The workers were not unionized when the plant opened in 2022, but they were brought into the UAW under the terms of the national contract the union negotiated with GM last fall. This new contract, subject to ratification by factory workers, defines wages and working conditions specific to this site.
Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW, said in a letter to union members that the agreement is “a game changer for the electric vehicle battery industry.”
GM and Ultium released statements saying they were pleased with the deal.
The union said it plans to use the Ultium Cells contract as a model to negotiate local deals at other battery factories that GM and its Detroit rivals are building. GM began production this year at a battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and has another under construction in Lansing, Michigan.
Ford Motor plans two battery factories in Kentucky, one in Tennessee and one in Michigan. Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram vehicles, is planning two battery factories in Indiana. Aside from one Ford site, these plants involve joint ventures that were brought under the UAW umbrella as part of the national contracts the union signed with Ford and Stellantis last fall.
Ultium Cells’ contract calls for workers to receive a new wage of $30.50 an hour. Over three years, the salary will increase to $35 an hour. The national contract signed last fall had increased Ultium Cells’ starting wage to $26.91, up from $16.50 an hour when the plant opened.
That pay scale is slightly lower than at GM auto plants, where most workers will reach a maximum wage of more than $40 an hour over the next few years.
Ultium Cells’ contract also calls for the plant to employ four UAW members as full-time safety representatives, as well as a full-time industrial hygienist. The union and Ultium workers have raised concerns about working with high-voltage electricity and potentially harmful compounds used in the production of electric vehicle batteries.
The Ohio plant is of particular significance because it is next to the shuttered GM Lordstown auto plant, which once employed several thousand workers.
After GM permanently closed the Lordstown plant in 2019, the company was criticized by President Donald J. Trump and the plight of the laid-off workers was brought up on the 2020 campaign trail.
Separately, the UAW said about 200 workers who had formerly worked at the Lordstown plant and had taken jobs at other GM locations would soon be transferred to the Ultium Cells plant so they could return to the region. About 40 workers will start working there next week, followed by additional groups of about 40 over the coming weeks, a union spokesperson said.
