By Nora Eckert and David Shepardson
(Reuters) – The United Auto Workers union said on Wednesday that a battery manufacturing joint venture between General Motors (NYSE:) and LG Energy Solution has agreed to recognize the union at a plant in Tennessee.
The UAW said most workers at Ultium Cells facilities signed cards to join the UAW and the company agreed to recognize their union after workers at an Ultium plant in Ohio voted overwhelmingly to join the union in 2022 and won a new contract earlier this year with significant wage increases.
The Tennessee factory employs 1,000 workers and produces batteries for GM's electric vehicles built at a nearby assembly plant, including the Cadillac Lyriq.
“The Ultium Cells team in Tennessee has indicated its desire to be represented by the UAW. The parties will now move to the local bargaining process,” a GM spokesman said.
LG representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
GM's battery operations were a point of contention in last year's UAW contract negotiations, during which the union staged strikes at plants of the Big Three automakers for six weeks.
The automaker has finally agreed to allow its Ultium battery plants to fall under the union's master agreement once a majority of workers decide to unionize.
UAW President Shawn Fain is leading a $40 million nationwide organizing effort targeting major automakers like Toyota (NYSE:) and Tesla (NASDAQ:).
The union scored a victory at Volkswagen (ETR:) in April when 73% of eligible voting workers at a Tennessee plant opted to join the ranks of the UAW, becoming the first auto plant in the South to unionize through an election since the 1940s.
Weeks after the victory, workers at a Mercedes-Benz (OTC:) plant in Alabama voted against joining the union. The UAW said earlier this year that more than 30 percent of employees at a Hyundai (OTC:) plant in Alabama and a Toyota auto parts factory in Missouri had signed cards indicating they wanted to join the UAW.
The union's executive board recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for president, emphasizing that the Democrat supports workers more than former Republican President Donald Trump. Fain and Trump have traded barbs in recent months, with Fain calling the former president a “scab” and Trump calling for Fain to be fired.
Having the backing of the next administration could lend support to the union's ongoing organizing efforts, but it likely won't make or break them, labor professors have said.
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