AUTOS

EV battery plants emerge as wild card issue in UAW contract talks

PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 21 2023•9:45 AM EDT | UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Michael Wayland
@MIKEWAYLAND

KEY POINTS
• Multibillion-dollar EV battery plants are crucial to the automotive industry’s future and uniquely positioned to have wide-ranging implications.
• UAW leadership has made it clear they plan to consider the plants in the national negotiations with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
• But the automakers contend the joint venture plants are not legally part of the discussions.

DETROIT – In already-contentious labor talks between the United Auto Workers union and major automakers, there’s a wild-card issue hanging over the discussions.

Multibillion-dollar EV battery plants — and their thousands of expected workers — are crucial to the automotive industry’s future and uniquely positioned to have wide-ranging implications for the UAW, automakers and President Joe Biden’s push toward domestic manufacturing.

But there’s a problem. They aren’t part of the negotiations.

Nearly all of the announced plants are separate joint ventures with their own operations, negotiations and contracts — contracts that aren’t under the umbrella of labor agreements being negotiated with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis ahead of a Sept. 14 deadline. The automakers contend the joint venture plants are therefore not legally part of the discussion.

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