UAW strike demands EV jobs and battery plants are union. It could transform Kentucky.

The fast-growing electric vehicle industry can create thousands of good-paying jobs – like the auto jobs of decades past – but that vision hinges on the United Auto Workers striking in Louisville and across the country.

The UAW is thinking ahead, making it a priority to ensure EV jobs are union. The UAW wants to build EV batteries and they’re pushing the Big Three automakers to include EV battery plants under the master agreement they’re currently negotiating.

What that future could look like with EV auto manufacturing

It’s 2050. You’re taking a family road trip across Kentucky in your new electric SUV, which is saving you money on fuel. Traffic smog has noticeably decreased. Fewer kids back home in your neighborhood are developing asthma. Scenic views along rivers and from mountaintops are more vibrant.

UAW strikes are working. Ford Kentucky Truck Plant picket line could shape the outcome

The Ohio River Valley is a global center for auto manufacturing, with more than a dozen large EV battery and assembly plants. All of the major EV automakers are unionized, as are many companies along the supply chain. You work at a Ford facility in Central Kentucky and your sister at a plant located in east Kentucky that fabricates sheet metal for Kentucky’s EV and aerospace industries. That plant helped revitalize a coal town that struggled economically for decades and hurt even worse after a historic flood in 2022.

Your union job cleared a cloud of worry hanging over your community: fears you wouldn't have enough cash for groceries, sadness that long hours denied you special moments with your children, and concerns that your spouse would accidentally tweak their knee and healthcare bills would dry up your bank account.

Your union helps raise your wages, improve your benefits and protect your job from closures or layoffs. You have the security to slow down and live a little. Thankfully, thousands of other Kentuckians are now in a similar position. As you drive, you remember a defining moment in 2023 when an autoworker strike forced the Big Three to assure those first EV plants would be union.

A bright future isn’t guaranteed, but it is more possible than ever thanks to UAW strike

The Big Three automakers have ten current or planned facilities to manufacture EV batteries, including two in Kentucky and six others in Indiana, Tennessee, and Ohio. But nine of the battery plants are joint ventures with other companies, like the BlueOval Battery Park in Kentucky managed by Ford and SK. The Big Three – while benefiting from government subsidies – claimed for months that since EV plants are jointly managed, they can’t be covered under the master UAW agreement for plants owned by Ford, GM, and Stellantis.

That’s not quite true.

GM claimed its four battery plants in the US could not be covered by the master agreement. But that changed as UAW workers prepared to strike at a crucial GM facility in Texas this month. GM finally changed course and agreed to include its battery plants under the agreement.

The GM battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio illustrates the risk many auto workers see: that the Big Three will use the EV transition as an excuse to lower wages. In 2019 GM closed a car assembly plant there where UAW workers were making $32 hourly. The battery plant they built soon after wasn’t union and wages started at $16.50 hourly. Wages had edged up to $20 hourly when GM agreed to include the plant in the master agreement, under which the UAW is seeking significant raises.

Potential Ford LAP layoff: Workers should get unemployment benefits not UAW strike funds

Ford and Stellantis have yet to agree to include their battery plants. But the strike is already having some effect: In July, Ford’s BlueOval SK Battery Park said wages would start at $21 hourly, and during the strike announced they would range from $24 to $37.50. (BlueOval SK claims the raises are not related to the strike).

This progress underlines how powerful workers can be when they stand together. The wages often offered by large companies aren’t the “market rate,” but rather what they assume they can get away with. Securing better pay and holding these companies to account is not only up to courageous striking workers, but also to us. Kentucky workers and their families need to know we have their backs as they make history and build a solid foundation for our future.

Eric Dixon is a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute and a resident of Louisville.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Auto workers' strike is making history. EV push could transform KY