Local UAW says 'it will be a fight' to unionize new battery plant

United Auto Workers Local 685 says it’s demanding the future employees at the new Kokomo battery plant be represented by the current operating agreement it has for the other local Stellantis factories.

President Matt Jarvis said the UAW is preparing to fight to unionize the battery plant once it opens, which is expected to happen in early 2025. The $2.5-billion factory is a joint venture between Stellantis and Samsung SDI and will employ 1,400 workers.

“It’s going to be a fight to get that plant unionized and under the agreement,” Jarvis said in a YouTube video posted this month on the UAW 685 website. “We need to fight and make a stand that that plant will be union ... so prepare for a good fight.”

But Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson said the company has no issue with future workers unionizing at the plant.

“We respect the right of the Union to organize future hourly employees at the joint venture facility in Kokomo, and believe that those future employees have the right to decide their representational status through secret ballot elections, as provided for under the National Labor Relations Act,” she said in an email.

Under the act, the plant could unionize if at least 30% of workers sign cards or a petition saying they want a union. The National Labor Relations Board would then hold an election and would certify the union if the majority of workers vote in favor.

An employer could also voluntarily recognize a union based on evidence, such as signed union-authorization cards, that a majority of employees want the union to represent them.

However, a question mark remains on what entity exactly will be employing workers at the battery plant. Mark Steward, COO of Stellantis North America, said in an interview after the announcement that the joint venture will eventually become its own corporate entity. He said the name of the new company will be announced in the coming months.

Jarvis said in the video that no UAW representatives were notified or invited to the announcement last month, and he worried the plant could lead to less work at the Kokomo Engine Plant and Indiana Transmission Plant.

“If they’re building that in our backyard just right across from the engine plant, and right down from ITP, we have to look at that as every battery that goes out that door, that’s one less engine and transmission they’re going to need,” he said.

If the battery plant were to join UAW 685, workers there could potentially transfer to the factory if any layoffs or cutbacks were to come to the other local Stellantis plants.

Following the announcement, UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, director of UAW’s Stellantis department, said “We look forward to negotiating an agreement with Stellantis that brings this new plant under our master agreement with traditional wages and benefits.”

Jarvis did not respond to messages left Tuesday seeking more information on the UAW’s effort to unionize the battery plant.

The new factory will produce batteries for a range of electric vehicles produced at Stellantis’ North American assembly plants. The 3.3-million-square-foot facility will be built at the site of the city’s new industrial park, located at 2644 N. 50 East, just southeast of the Kokomo Engine Plant.

The factory is Stellantis’ first battery plant in the U.S., and the second in North America. The company announced in March it was also building a $4-billion battery plant in Windsor, Canada, which will employ 2,500.

The automotive industry’s rapid transition to EV technology through joint ventures with international companies poses a challenge to the UAW, which has represented mostly traditional plants producing parts and vehicles that use internal-combustion engines.

UAW President Ray Curry said during a seminar in March that the UAW is in talks with General Motors about organizing workers at battery plants under development in Ohio and Tennessee, wardsauto.com reported.

But because those plants aren’t at full employment levels, Curry said, it makes it difficult for the union to call for voluntary recognition as hourly workers’ bargaining agent, the news site reported.

The battery plants are also joint ventures between GM and two South Korean companies and fall outside traditional automaker agreements.

That’s the same issue the union faces at the Kokomo battery plant, which is a joint venture between Stellantis and Samsung SDI.