The United Automobile Workers union on Monday announced a tentative contract agreement at an Ohio factory that makes batteries for electric vehicles, a step it called a milestone in improving wages and safety in the electric vehicle supply chain.
The deal covers 1,600 workers at a Lordstown plant operated by Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and a South Korean partner, LG Energy Solution. Produces batteries for GM electric vehicles.
The workers were not unionized when the plant opened in 2022, but were brought into the UAW under the terms of the national contract the union negotiated with GM last fall. This new contract, subject to ratification by plant workers, defines wages and working conditions specific to that location.
Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, said in a letter to union members that the agreement was “a turning point for the electric vehicle battery industry.”
GM and Ultium issued statements saying they were pleased with the deal.
The union said it planned to use the Ultium Cells contract as a model while negotiating local agreements at other battery plants that GM and its Detroit rivals are building. GM started production this year at a battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and has another under construction in Lansing, Michigan.
Ford Motor plans two battery plants in Kentucky, one in Tennessee and one in Michigan. Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram vehicles, plans two battery plants in Indiana. Aside from a Ford location, those plants involve joint ventures that were brought into the UAW under national contracts the union signed with Ford and Stellantis last fall.
Ultium Cells’ contract calls for workers to move to a new wage of $30.50 an hour. In three years, wages will rise to $35 an hour. The national contract signed last fall had raised Ultium Cells’ starting wage to $26.91, up from $16.50 an hour when the plant opened.
That pay scale is slightly lower than at GM’s auto plants, where most workers will move to a top wage of more than $40 an hour in the coming years.
The Ultium Cells contract also requires the plant to employ four UAW members as full-time safety representatives and one full-time industrial hygienist. The union and Ultium workers have raised concerns about working with high-voltage electricity and potentially harmful compounds used in the production of battery packs for electric vehicles.
The Ohio factory has special significance because it is next to GM’s closed Lordstown auto plant, which once employed several thousand workers.
After GM permanently closed the Lordstown factory in 2019, the company was criticized by President Donald J. Trump and the plight of laid-off workers was invoked in the 2020 election campaign.
Separately, the UAW said about 200 workers who once worked at the Lordstown plant and had taken jobs at other GM locations would soon move to the Ultium Cells factory so they could return to the area. About 40 workers will start working there next week, followed by other groups of about 40 over the next few weeks, a union spokesman said.