Ford Balks at UAW Representing Battery Plant Employees

Ford is sticking with its position that the battery plants essential to the shift to electric vehicles are beyond the scope of the current negotiations with the UAW, which have led to targeted strikes by the union against Ford, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis.

“While Ford remains open to the possibility of working with the UAW on future battery plants in the United States, these are multibillion-dollar investments and must operate at competitive and sustainable levels,” Ford says in a statement issued after the UAW announced GM had agreed to place battery plants under the GM-UAW master agreement.

UAW President Shawn Fain hailed the breakthrough in negotiations with GM and agreed to suspend plans to expand the strikes to GM’s assembly plant in Arlington, TX, which builds fullsize SUVs and is considered GM’s most profitable assembly plant in North America.

“GM has now agreed in writing to place their electric-battery manufacturing under our national master agreement. We’ve been told for months this is impossible,” says Fain, who acknowledged during a Facebook Live appearance Friday that the union and all three of Detroit’s automakers remain far apart on several key issues such as pensions, eliminating tiered-wage structures and shortening the work week to 32 hours.

Fain adds the GM agreement will ensure an end to the “race to the bottom” where battery plant employees are paid substantially less than those who build the engines and transmissions used in vehicles with gasoline or diesel powertrains.

GM had little to say about Fain’s announcement. “Negotiations remain ongoing, and we will continue to work towards finding solutions to address outstanding issues. Our goal remains to reach an agreement that rewards our employees and allows GM to be successful into the future,” GM spokesman David Barnas says in an email.

UAW Local 230 picket line Ontario CA 9-26-23 (Getty)

Stellantis remains silent on the battery plant issue, though the Unifor Local 444 in Windsor, ON, Canada, which is waiting to bargain on a new contract with the automaker, says it wants a new battery plant under construction in Windsor placed under the master agreement.

Ford CEO Jim Farley insists the UAW is using the battery plant issue to hold up progress toward a settlement on mandatory bargaining issues such as wages and employee benefits. Union bargainers, however, consider the issues around the battery plants “permissive,” which means they can be discussed during the bargaining since terms of the previous contract were not extended.

Ford notes in a statement released over the weekend that three of the four battery plants it’s announced are part of the Blue Oval SK joint venture between Ford and South Korea’s SK On.

“The workforce for these operations has not been hired. The future employees at these operations can choose to be union represented and enter the collective bargaining process. As Ford has made clear, none of our employees, including powertrain employees, will lose their jobs due to our battery plants during this contract period. In fact, for the foreseeable future, we will have to hire more workers as some workers retire, in order to keep up with demand for our (internal-combustion-engine) products,” the Ford statement says.

While neither side says the contract talks are deadlocked, Ford continues to emphasize meeting the UAW’s demands would wipe out billions that are essential to invest in growth if Ford is to remain viable against non-union automakers.

Negotiations did continue over the weekend. But Fain’s attention was diverted to a rally outside the Ford assembly plant in Chicago, where union members have been on strike since Sept. 29.

“Today, we send a very clear message to the rest of the world, that the power of the workers will be heard and felt one way or the other,” Fain notes during his appearance in Chicago, which is part of the UAW effort to wage a public campaign to pressure the automakers at the bargaining table. So far, the campaign has succeeded in building support for the strike and keeping the companies off-balance, union officials believe.

Fain says the UAW is launching a strike by 4,000 members employed at plants belonging to heavy-truck maker Mack (inset, below left) in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida. Union members rejected a tentative agreement with Mack over the weekend, setting up the walkout. The strike involves wages, cost-of-living adjustments and job-security provisions Mack was offering in the rejected tentative agreement, which included a 19% pay increase spread over five years.

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Mack says in a statement it is disappointed with the outcome of ratification vote.

“We’re surprised and disappointed that the UAW has chosen to strike, which we feel is unnecessary. The company clearly demonstrated its commitment to good faith bargaining by arriving at a tentative agreement that was endorsed by both the International UAW and the UAW Mack Truck Council,” the company says.