The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is coming after GM and LG’s joint venture Ultium Cells LLC in its latest round of labor contract negotiations and wants its cut of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding through tax credits.
The UAW is in the midst of negotiations with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis and is particularly eager to ensure that workers at GM and LG-run Ultium sites are compensated fairly. The union states that working at an Ultium factory presents more risks than working at a traditional automotive factory and yet, Ultium employees are getting paid less than GM employees. Indeed, whereas workers in engine plants earn more than $30 an hour, battery workers at Ultium max out at roughly $22 an hour.
Bloomberg reports that a number of accidents have occurred at the Ultium plant in Lordstown, Ohio. In late June, workers had to extinguish a defective battery that caught fire, and two of them were sent to the hospital for smoke inhalation. In May, a worker was sprayed with toxic gas while extracting a poisonous electrolyte compound from a battery cell. He suffered minor burns to his face and missed three days of work. Last year, a contractor at the plant was crushed by an automated crane. He suffered serious injuries and later died in hospital.
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The UAW says that 22 workers have suffered injuries and missed a combined 200 days of work at the Ultium plant, equating to 2.2 injuries per hundred workers or twice the average for battery plants. Ultium has paid $68,000 in fines over the last year to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for non-injury claims.
“It’s not just the low pay, these jobs are often dangerous,” UAW president Shawn Fain said. “This is our defining moment. It’s time to build an EV industry that puts workers first.”
GM is expected to earn $300 million in tax credits through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act this year and the UAW thinks it’s only fair that workers are compensated.
“A just transition must include standards for our members and future workers,” Fain said. “[Otherwise] taxpayers are going to continue to funnel over $1 billion a year to Ultium despite their paying poverty wages and having horrifying health and safety conditions.”
