Beshear calls it the world’s largest EV battery factory, now they want to unite – Hoptown Chronicle

Built by remarkable southern victories in 2024, the Union of United Automobile Workers is in an effort to organize the sector of electric vehicles and the battery. UAW hopes his next prize is a widespread campus in the village kentucky, which, after being completed, will be the largest EV battery factory in the world.

The first major elections of the Union south this year are heading for Glendale, Kentucky, a small agricultural community outside the Interstate 65, south of Louisville.

Governor Andy Beaar says the future of the Blueoval SK plant positions Kentucky as the capital of the EV battery of the world.

“This is nothing but incredible,” Breshar said during a plant tour. “This project is the largest in Kentucky community history so far.”

A super majority of BlueOVAL SK workers has asked the National Labor Relations Council for joining the United Automobile Workers, representing Ford employees in the United States, nearly $ 6 billion for electric vehicle battery is part of a joint venture between Ford and SK in South Korea, covering two production factories for a total value of over eight million square feet.

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Kentucky’s new corporate neighbor is expected to hire 5,000 workers who were once in operation, but some early rents such as quality operator Haley Hadfield say the company’s management has neglected safety concerns.

“It is as if these people are wearing horse blinds,” Hadfield said after a meeting in the Hall of the Local Union in Elizabethtown last month. “They think it’s just a pay, it’s only for insurance, but it’s not. It’s about how you treat us as people and whether we come to work for safety or not. ”

Although not yet in production, workers say they are at risk of fire, electrical and chemical danger, sometimes without personal protective equipment. The manufacturing operator Bill Wilmot has experienced respiratory problems of mold.

“When we came back from the Christmas break, after about an hour, I began to notice a burning in my throat, burning in my eyes,” Wilmot explained. “Lunch time is coming, you go out and you get fresh air, quickly deviates.”

In a statement, Blueoval SK said its safety protocols were “stable and consistent, meeting industrial standards and complying with the strict federal, state and local provisions.”

“Before our first production employee was hired, Blueoval SK conducted a thorough analysis of operating safety and environmental fears around the production, processing, storage and disposal of our materials,” said company spokesman Malory Cook. “We are dedicated to the training of our team members about their role and the defense systems we have.”

Workers cite safety concerns as a major motive for organizing, but add their pay and their benefits are greater than those of workers in the two Ford Assembly factories in the nearby Louisville.

Shortly after the employees publicly launched the Union campaign in November, BlueOVAL SK announced higher initial salaries. In a statement, the company said the increases followed an overview of compensation and benefits to remain competitive with the market. If it was an attempt to repel the unification, he may have given up. Production operator Alisha Miller says she did not receive the full amount of promotion, which was originally proposed.

“It may not be deliberate, but we all felt lied to. In fact, we then received a few cards signed, “Miller commented. “I think, honestly, this is just the flame. There was an unwavering not very long time and I think it was the last straw. ”

Louisville -born Stephen Allen, a labor economist at North Carolina State University, says the Union election often comes when there is a lot of dissatisfaction with companies.

“These Union elections, as long as we can talk about global economic forces and more, often,” did anyone do something that really upset the workers in this plant? Did the management make a series of errors in plant management? This can tilt the scales, “Alan explained.

Unlike the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, who visited the Volkswagen plant in Chattanuga last year to discourage workers to organize, Governor Andy Berer did not interfere on both sides of the Union’s Kentucky Union efforts.

“I am the governor of the Union. I’ll always be, “Beshear said. “I hope that participating companies will remain neutral and allow this to be a true solution for employees.”

But it doesn’t happen. Cody McDowell runs Lincoln Lodge, a cabin motel to Abraham Lincoln’s National Historical Park in Hajuville, where many of the city’s residents are hired at a nearby Sk Blueoval plant in Glendale. Recently, they have noticed that his social media accounts have been flooded with BOSK ads that are trying to oppose the Union’s efforts.

“He presented an example of a Wisconsin main conclusions factory that can close and attribute this to the unification and efforts of efforts to this plant, just a classic union scare campaigns,” McDowell said.

BlueOVAL SK workers submitted a petition last month to the National Election Labor Council. The company asked for a hearing from NLRB, which UAW calls a delay tactic. The hearing, in addition to the NRRB Council crash by the Trump Administration, is likely to reject the election date within a few months.

BlueOVAL SK says union elections are premature because most workers have not yet been hired.

“They also deserve to hear their voice. And none of our team members had the opportunity to see how our plant would work, as we have not yet started production, “said company spokesman Melori Cook in a statement. “UAW is trying to get BlueOVAL SK into the unification before our full workforce has the opportunity to make a really free and informed choice.”

But the quality operator Halee Hadfield, who previously worked at a union store, sees differently.

“I think we started our campaign for unification just in time because we know that without intervention by the clock workers at BlueOVAL SK, this place will not improve,” Hadfield said after an organizing meeting in Elizabethtown last month.

Hadfield knows the benefits of contract work. She left GE’s appliances in Louisville to become one of the pioneers in the EV field. The first of the Gemini plants in Glendale is expected to start the production of Ford and Lincoln car battery this year. The second plant of Blueoval SK is indefinitely due to the slow demand for EV, another supporters of the Union of Argument is organizing now.

UAW tries to expand its support to the south, where there is a deep -rooted resistance to the unions.

Blueoval SK has another battery complex in Tennessee. Hyundai has opened a factory in Georgia last fall, which produces electric cars, and the foreign car manufacturer will open a battery factory in a peach state later this year.

UAW sees all the plants as ripe for organization, descending from lucrative contracts in 2023 with Ford, GM and Stellantis.

“The agreements speak for themselves,” says Tim Smith, director of UAW Region 8, which represents 17 states from the south. “Workers want work on an honest day to pay an honest day and they don’t get that now.”

UAW hopes to upgrade a victory from Volkswagen workers in Chattanuga, Tennessee in 2024. This was the first time UAW managed to organize a factory south.

“I still wouldn’t use the word trend,” said labor economist Stephen Allen.

UAW lost an organizing vote in two factories for Mercedes-Benz in Alabama last year, but still hoped to repeat its success in 2024. In addition to Volkswagen, workers at the Spring Hill ultimate factory voted last year to unite to unite to unite to unite for unification.

Almost all southern states have laws for “right to work”, which makes workers outlined or join the unions. They can still benefit from the benefits of the trade union contract without paying fees. For the second consecutive year, Union membership throughout the country reached all time in the United States in 2024, compared to 9.9%, but more than 11% of Kentucky workers were represented by an union.

The coefficient of merger in Kentucky has grown in the last two years and with Ford has two organized assembly factories in the nearby Louisville, UAW’s next victory seems logical in Glendale.

“I am not surprised to see that this union is organizing aspiration and I suppose the union will be successful when it appears for a vote, especially if already, we will say some misunderstandings about increases and safety,” said the economist economist, ” said economist Alan. “This will make it difficult for Ford’s work more difficult.”

The date will be determined by the election of a secret ballot and if the majority of workers vote in favor of the Union, the next step is to negotiate a contract for what will become the 10th largest manufacturing site in the world.

Copyright 2025 Wku Public Radio

(This story was held for the first time at Wkyu, the public radio station at Western Kentucky University.)