Supermajority of Workers at EV Battery Maker BlueOval SK in Kentucky Have Signed Union Cards, Launch Public Campaign to Join UAW

GLENDALE, Ky. – A supermajority of workers at BlueOval SK (BOSK) in Kentucky have signed union authorization cards and today launched their public campaign to join the UAW. The campaign launch at BOSK, a joint venture of Ford and SK On, is the latest breakthrough for electric vehicle (EV) battery workers organizing with the UAW.

A new video announcing the campaign can be accessed here, and the media is invited to use the footage. (More information on the campaign is available at uaw.org/BOSK.)

In the video, narrated by BOSK workers, they explain that “battery workers are autoworkers” and deserve “the good, safe union jobs” that UAW members have won elsewhere in the auto industry.

The BOSK workers are building on the victories of UAW battery workers at Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tenn. Ultium is the joint venture that makes batteries for General Motors’ EV fleet.

In June, UAW members at Ultium in Lordstown, Ohio, won a contract with the same strong standards that UAW members have at all General Motors facilities. In September, workers at Ultium’s new plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., formed their union and are now preparing to negotiate their union contract.

Because BOSK is currently a nonunion facility, workers there have pay, benefit and safety standards much weaker than those of UAW members at Ford. Starting pay for a BOSK production worker is just $21 an hour. UAW production workers at Ford start at $26.32, and after three years will make over $42 an hour.

BOSK workers are joining together to ensure that they achieve UAW autoworkers standards. The movement led by BOSK and Ultium workers is setting strong standards for the rapidly expanding EV battery industry. A recent study found that manufacturers have announced nearly 90,000 current or future jobs in the EV battery industry linked to more than $100 billion in investments over the last nine years.

The growing movement among nonunion battery workers across the country, and especially in the South, builds off the success of the UAW’s Stand Up Strike at the Big Three and the victory by Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., who became the first Southern autoworkers outside the Big Three to win their union when they voted to join the UAW in April.