One of the biggest wins the United Auto Workers’ secured in its historic negotiations with the Big Three automakers last year was a commitment from Stellantis to reopen and expand its shuttered factory in Belvidere, Illinois. Now the company is shelving those plans, which included retooling the factory to produce electric vehicles and EV batteries, and suing the union for threatening to strike in response.
The dispute illustrates a new turn in the EV transition. Whereas last year auto workers were wary of the transition and fighting to keep their jobs intact, now their jobs are dependent on that transition actually happening, and happening soon. The UAW is concerned that the company will delay the plant’s reopening until 2028 — after the union’s contract expires.
Stellantis idled the Belvidere plant, which previously produced Jeep Cherokees, in February 2023, laying off more than 1,300 workers. But under its agreement with the UAW, the company said it would spend nearly $5 billion to restart the factory. The contract includes commitments to opening a parts distribution hub there this year, producing a new mid-size truck there by 2027, and building an electric vehicle battery plant at the site by 2028. Not only would jobs at Belvidere be restored, but the battery plant was expected to employ an additional 1,300 people. Former Belvidere employees would also be reclassified as temporary layoffs and receive partial pay and full healthcare benefits until operations started up again.
President Joe Biden celebrated Belvidere as a “great comeback story” in his State of the Union speech in March. “Instead of an auto factory shutting down, an auto factory is reopening and a new state-of-the-art battery factory is being built to power those cars,” he said. “Instead of a town being left behind it’s a community moving forward again!”
In July, plans to turn Belvidere into an EV hub seemed to be taking shape when the Department of Energy selected Stellantis for a $335 million grant to transition the plant’s assembly lines to be able to produce electric vehicles. The grant website says the project was anticipated to incorporate “significant upgrades” to the plant’s infrastructure and re-employ about “1,450 unionized and highly skilled employees.” Stellantis, however, did not issue any press releases about the grant. In a statement to the Chicago Tribune, the company said it was “an important step in continuing to work toward finalizing a sustainable solution” for Belvidere.
About a month later, the narrative around Belvidere started to shift. UAW president Shawn Fain posted a video on social media claiming something was “rotten” at Stellantis and accused the company of “putting the brakes” on its plans to reopen the plant. On August 20, Stellantis confirmed that “plans for Belvidere will be delayed,” though it “firmly stands by its commitment” to reopen the plant. The company’s explanation for the decision was vague and did not include a new timeline. “To ensure the Company’s future competitiveness and sustainability,” it said, “it is critical that the business case for all investments is aligned with market conditions and our ability to accommodate a wide range of consumer demands.”
As it stands, the business is not exactly in a sustainable place. In July, Stellantis reported that its U.S. revenues were down 16% compared to the first half of last year. Declining sales have left dealerships with a glut of inventory. Fain blames the company’s poor performance on its CEO Carlos Tavares, questioning how “market conditions” could be holding back investments in Belvidere when Tavares took a 56% raise last year, “making him the highest paid auto executive outside of Tesla.”
In response, the company published a fact check of the union’s claims, which notes that “there is indisputable volatility in the market, especially as the industry transitions to an electrified future. Over the past year, numerous companies across the industry have announced investment and product delays as well as outright product cancellations.” Stellantis currently sells just one EV in the U.S., the Fiat 500e, which it manufactures in Italy; in September, the company announced it had suspended production due to poor sales, though it still has several new EV models slated to launch later this year.
More than a dozen local UAW units all over the country filed grievances against Stellantis in August, arguing that the company’s “failure to plan for, fund and launch these programs constitute a violation” of its contract. The union has threatened to strike if the grievances are not addressed, citing its “right to strike over product and investment commitments” — another provision of the 2023 contract.
Stellantis denies that it has violated the contract and thrown the accusation back at UAW, noting that the agreement included a clause that says it is understood that the investments are “contingent upon plant performance, changes in market conditions, and consumer demand.” It has since filed eight lawsuits against the union and several of its locals for threatening to strike.
The company has also not completely abandoned its plans for the EV transition. A few weeks ago, it announced it would invest more than $406 million to prepare three Michigan factories for EV production. During a livestream in September, Fain wrote off those investments as representing just a small portion of what the company committed to.
In response to questions about why investment in Belvidere was delayed, whether the company would still pursue the federal grant, or what the new timeline for the plant was, a representative from Stellantis sent me bullet points from the previously published fact check.
The Department of Energy did not answer questions about the status or timeline for the factory conversion grant.
Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman speaks at last year’s International Atomic Energy Agency plenary. JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images