UAW scores supermajority at BlueOval SK in 2025’s first big labor win

Final week’s inauguration of President Trump stole the headlines, but it surely wasn’t the one massive election information — a supermajority of employees at BlueOval SK voted to file a petition final week with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board to unite with the UAW.

The supermajority vote by employees at BlueOval SK occurred after attending a city hall-style assembly in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with UAW members from Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio final month. The Lordstown Ultium plant makes battery cells for GM and Honda electrical autos and, just like the BlueOval SK (BOSK) mission, is a three way partnership between one of many Detroit 3 and a Korean battery model (within the case of Ultium, GM and LG; within the case of BlueOval SK, Ford and SK On).

The similarities had been apparently sufficient to persuade nearly all of BOSK employees of the UAW crew’s credibility within the historically union-opposing south. The transfer is predicted to yield quick enhancements in working situations on the Kentucky plant.

“We’re forming our union so we will have a say in our security and our working situations,” defined Halee Hadfield, a high quality operator at BOSK. “The chemical compounds we’re working with could be extraordinarily harmful. If one thing goes incorrect, a large explosion can happen. With our union, we will communicate up if we see there’s an issue and ensure we’re retaining ourselves and the entire group protected,”

These security issues had been echoed by different BlueOval SK staff who voted to affix the UAW. “I’ve labored each union and nonunion jobs and have seen the ability of a union firsthand,” mentioned Andrew McLean, a logistics employee in formation at BOSK. “Proper now, we don’t have a say at BOSK. With a union, we’ll be on a stage enjoying area with administration. That’s so vital once you’re getting a brand new plant off the bottom. The union permits us to provide sincere suggestions with out worry of retaliation.”

Ford paid its shareholders greater than $3 billion in dividends, on a gross revenue of over $24.7 billion for the twelve months ending September 30, 2024. That $3 billion can be sufficient to pay every of Ford’s 177,000 world staff a one-time bonus of $16,950. In line with Ford’s 2024 proxy assertion, Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Firm, earned a complete compensation of $26,470,033 in 2023 — an almost $6 million elevate from 2022.

The rising unionization motion amongst nonunion battery employees throughout the nation, and particularly within the South, builds off the success of the UAW Stand Up Strike on the Huge Three, in addition to the victory by Volkswagen employees in Chattanooga, who grew to become the primary Southern autoworkers employed exterior the Huge Three to affix the UAW final April.

SOURCE | IMAGES: UAW.