Labor Aspirations in the Southern EV Industry

The electric vehicle industry in the Southeast is growing rapidly, with increased sales, charging stations and manufacturing. Buoyed by notable victories in the last couple of years, the United Auto Workers union is revving up efforts to organize the EV and battery sector in the South. One target is a sprawling campus in rural Kentucky that, once completed, will be one of the largest EV battery plants in the world. A supermajority of workers at BlueOval SK has asked the National Labor Relations Board for a vote on joining the United Auto Workers. The nearly $6 billion electric vehicle battery campus in Glendale, Kentucky, is part of a joint venture between Ford and South Korea’s SK On.