As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s continued commitment to its Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded UAW Region 6 and the UAW Center for Manufacturing a Green Economy (UAW-CMGE) $2 million to further develop the High Road Battery Training Program in partnership with the Sparkz corporation.

The UAW-CMGE is one of 21 new projects recently selected by the DOE to receive a total of $24 million in funding to expand clean energy and support sustainable manufacturing in the U.S.

The UAW-CMGE was created in 2023 to lead the union’s recruitment and training for careers in climate manufacturing, empowering a well-trained, mission-driven green workforce to meet the growing needs of manufacturing operations created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

“The UAW-CMGE is developing a groundbreaking training model for rapidly growing climate industries, starting with the critically important domestic battery industry,” Priyanka Mohanty, Executive Director of the UAW-CMGE, said about the $2 million investment. “Our model, which focuses on equitable recruitment, technical battery knowledge, and the build-out of innovative new green apprenticeship programs, represents the high-road pathway central to the climate transition. This model will empower and protect workers on the shop floor, ensure that their voices are amplified, and build a just transition towards new, diverse, climate industries. The DOE’s 2 million dollar investment in the UAW and our center highlights the importance of high-road training programs to decarbonization, and we look forward to showing that an investment in workers is an investment in the American climate economy.”

“The UAW has shown the central role of an empowered manufacturing workforce in American decarbonization,” said Mike Miller, Chairperson, UAW-CMGE and UAW Region 6 Director. “The 2023 UAW’s contract negotiations with the Big 3 automakers were a seismic event in the struggle for a just transition. The strike brought thousands of EV and battery jobs under union national agreements with strong job quality protections and billion-dollar investments in the retooling of previously closed facilities. It showed the country that manufacturing electric vehicles and batteries – critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building new climate industries – can and must be built with good union jobs. The UAW wants to bring the expertise in training, workforce development, and good job creation to new green and advanced manufacturing production because it understands the critical importance of a just transition to broader decarbonization efforts.”

In 2023 the UAW and Sparkz announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a national labor-management agreement and statement of neutrality at the manufacturer’s the manufacturer’s facilities.

Sparkz, founded in 2019, develops and produces zero-cobalt, American-made Lithium-ion batteries. Eliminating cobalt from the battery-making process reduces the cost of producing lithium batteries and also addresses environmental concerns.