This year was shaping up to be a good one for the workers at the GM Orion Assembly plant in a working-class suburb of Detroit. After winning a pay raise following last year’s United Auto Workers strike, they were slated to start production later this year on a marquee product for GM: the electric Chevy Silverado pickup truck. But like thousands of other workers on the front lines of the electric vehicle transition, they have hit some bumps in the road.
The new contract also offers added benefits to protect laid-off workers, like allowing them to more easily transfer to plants making EV batteries, and includes incentives for early retirements if the automakers have to downsize their workforce, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University. “In the collective bargaining agreement they just negotiated, the UAW had first and foremost on their mind job security,” said Wheaton.