Podesta made an explicit appeal to business leaders in the audience at the Climate Week event on September 19, urging companies to ensure that their energy transition decisions are made with workers and labor rights in mind. In our interview, Podesta said he thinks incentives in the new law will help make that happen.
Another concern for the UAW is that much of the EV and battery manufacturing investment sparked by the Biden administration's policies has been happening in politically conservative states where unions have a smaller presence. Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee have all enjoyed major new battery and EV projects.
"We're seeing a lot of investment in right-to-work states, but even there we've seen some success from organizing. An "One is the flight of jobs to the Southeast and the other is the flight of jobs out of the U.S.," Motavalli told. While Southeastern states are receiving a large share of EV-related development, he said, the Biden administration's policies and incentives brought broader domestic job growth, guarding against job losses to global competitors.