Carmakers are building batteries with non-union labour, while electric vehicle production may require fewer workers overall.
The auto industry is one of the more heavily unionised parts of the US economy — and United Auto Workersin part to ensure that remains the case, even as the transition to electric vehicles threatens to shrink its workforce.
The UAW has criticised pay and working conditions at the joint venture, known as Ultium Cells. Workers there make less than UAW workers at the Detroit carmakers, though last month they won pay raises worth $US3 to $US4 an hour. Though considered the quintessential “good job” in the American imagination, auto jobs did not start that way. According to the Library of Congress, the average autoworker in 1935 took home about $US900 a month — just over half the amount necessary to support a family of four.
Carmakers have offered wage increases ranging from 17.5 to 20 per cent, while the UAW has asked for 36 per cent over four years. The carmakers also want to keep a two-tier wage system in which newer workers take four years to reach the same pay as longtime employees, which the union opposes. Electrification does not pose the same threat to unions outside the US. In Germany, where unions sit on company boards, electric vehicle workers are members of the same union as their engine-handling counterparts.
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