The future of electric vehicles looms over negotiations in the US autoworkers strike

Striking United Auto Workers member Chris Jedrzejek, right, and his father picket outside Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly Plant Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in Wayne, Mich. On the picket lines at a Ford factory west of Detroit, many striking workers don't think the electric vehicle revolution is coming for their jobs — at least not in the near future.

With the UAW strike now in its fourth week, EVs and their potential impact on job security have become central to union negotiations with the automakers. Contract talks are likely to determine whether those plants — mostly joint ventures with South Korean battery companies — are union, which may have long-lasting consequences as the auto industry transforms itself.

The issue, festering for months behind pay and cost-of-living increases, restoration of retirement benefits for new hires and even a 32-hour workweek, became huge Friday when GM agreed to unionization. Automakers are telling workers their jobs are secure, but the union doesn't see that in the transition to electric vehicles, Fain said. Instead, the companies want to pay “poverty wages” at the new plants and drive down pay in the industry, he said.Farley and other auto executives have said that because EVs have fewer moving parts, they will require 30% to 40% fewer workers to assemble than gasoline vehicles.

He doesn't believe the company line that higher-wage union battery plants would make Detroit's EVs too pricey. The pay at nonunion Toyota assembly plants, for instance, is similar to the top wage of UAW workers, he said, although Jedrzejek concedes that many Ford workers have better benefits such as pensions.

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