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The UAW is looking to organize a Ford joint-venture

battery

plant in the South

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The union had setbacks in the region last year

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Battery plants owned by the Detroit Three have become

battlegrounds

By Nora Eckert

DETROIT, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union

is petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to hold an

election at a Ford Motor ( F ) joint-venture battery plant in

Kentucky, the union said in a release Wednesday.

The BlueOval SK plant, owned by a partnership of South

Korea's SK On and Ford, is the latest battery battleground for

the union as it seeks to grow its decreasing membership and

secure jobs as the industry electrifies.

UAW President Shawn Fain has sought to expand on a historic

win last year at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee. The

labor group hasn't won a significant vote since, suffering a

defeat at a Mercedes plant in Alabama in May.

The UAW invested $40 million last year to organize non-union

automakers across the United States, a push that included

companies such as Tesla and Toyota ( TM ).

Battery plants partly owned by Detroit's automakers were a

major sticking point during the union's six-week strike against

Ford, General Motors ( GM ) and Jeep-maker Stellantis ( STLA )

in late 2023.

The union previously notched victories with Ultium Cells, a

joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution at

plants in Ohio and Tennessee. In June 2024, the union reached a

tentative contract at an Ohio GM battery plant, and in

September, GM agreed to recognize the union at an Ultium plant

in Tennessee.

Companies can agree to voluntarily recognize workers once a

majority sign cards supporting unionization, which is what

happened with the Ultium facility in Tennessee. In cases where

the company does not agree to do this, there is an election,

overseen by the NLRB, where workers must vote by majority to

unionize.

A union can file a petition for such an election after

collecting signatures from at 30% of workers, according to the

NLRB. The UAW said in November that a "supermajority" of workers

at the Kentucky facility signed cards indicating their support

for joining the union, without specifying the percentage.

An election date has not yet been set, but it typically

takes several weeks between when the union files for an election

and when it is held.

While the union got support from President Joe Biden,

including in-person at one of its picket lines during the

strike, Fain and president-elect Donald Trump have a more

contentious relationship. The incoming president has said the

union leader should be fired, and Fain said before the election

that if Trump won, it would be a "complete disaster for the

working class."