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The United Auto Workers’ contract with the Big Three automakers is almost up. Its replacement is going to be hotly contested.
One of the dirty little secrets of the electric vehicle boom is that many of its workers are paid less and enjoy fewer benefits than those who manufacture the nation’s gas guzzlers. But if unions have their way, that won’t be the case for long.
On September 14, the United Auto Workers' contract with the Big Three automakers — GM, Ford, and Stellantis — will expire. Negotiations for a new agreement are set to begin in July, and electric vehicle jobs will be a defining issue with potential to put the 380,000-member union on strike this fall. The union’s leadership team held a town hall late last month where they laid out the stakes.
“To be clear, I and the UAW leadership support this transition, but it must be a just transition,” said vice president of the union Mike Booth. “These must not only be union jobs, but they must be jobs that maintain the wages, benefits, and safety standards that generations of UAW members have fought for.”
So far, the industry has been trending in the opposite direction. Booth pointed to the Ultium battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio, which is a joint venture between GM and LG. Workers there currently start at $16.50 per hour, and can work their way up to $20 per hour after seven years. That’s well below the $32 per hour that union workers made at a nearby GM assembly plant that closed in 2019. “Meanwhile the company is receiving billions in government subsidies. This is not a just transition, and this is not an acceptable standard to set,” said Booth.
The Big Three are facing pressure to keep EV costs down amid inflation, materials scarcity, and increasing competition from international automakers — particularly from China. They also must contend with the fact that workers for other preeminent players in the nascent industry — Tesla and Rivian — aren’t unionized, although movements are cropping up to change that. While Elon Musk argues Tesla pays its workers more than their unionized counterparts, his company has been accused of serious labor violations and the National Labor Relations Board has ruled it illegally fired a worker involved in labor organizing.
The upcoming negotiations are a bellwether for many on the left's belief that the transition to clean energy can and should “create millions of good, high-wage jobs.” But as Booth’s remark suggests, union members aren’t just frustrated with the automakers, but with Biden. His signature climate policy, the Inflation Reduction Act, has begun fueling the growth of a domestic electric vehicle manufacturing industry with billions of dollars in incentives and little support for organized labor.
According to a database of clean manufacturing announcements maintained by Jack Conness, a policy analyst at the nonprofit Energy Innovation, companies have announced upwards of $70 billion in investments in U.S. battery and electric vehicle manufacturing since the law was passed.
The IRA has been hailed by labor advocates for including wage and apprenticeship requirements for many of its subsidies. But those provisions are geared at construction jobs, not manufacturing jobs. For example, while automakers must pay prevailing wages and hire apprentices to build their battery factories in order to qualify for the full “Advanced Energy Project Credit,” they do not have to make similar commitments to the workers who will actually make the batteries.
The only relevant labor requirements for those workers came in federal guidance on the tax credit for the manufacturing of clean energy parts that was published last month. It noted that the Internal Revenue Service would only consider projects recommended by the Department of Energy. That agency must base its endorsements on a set of criteria that includes having a “clear and appropriately robust plan” to engage with labor unions.
These kinds of provisions, like requiring developers to put their plans for workforce and community engagement in their applications, may help give unions a leg up. David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal D.C. policy think tank, pointed to the recent unionization of the Blue Bird electric school bus factory in rural Georgia. The company received funding from the EPA that required it to be “committed to remain neutral in any organizing campaign.”
“The Biden administration is doing a lot to ensure the jobs created by industrial policy are good jobs,” Madland told me in an email. “But more work needs to be done.”
Recently-elected insurgent president of the UAW Shawn Fain sent a memo to the union’s 380,000 members in early May warning that the shift to EVs was “at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom.” He stated that the union would not endorse Biden for re-election until he does more to support labor standards in the transition.
It’s not yet clear whether the transition to EVs will result in a net loss or gain of manufacturing jobs. Industry studies have noted that electric vehicles have fewer parts, and will therefore require fewer workers, than internal combustion engine vehicles. Ford CEO Jim Farley made waves in November when he said the job required 40% less labor, a statistic that echoes a similar warning by the UAW back in 2020
But some researchers and analysts have contested the idea. Carnegie Mellon engineers analyzed production data from leading automotive manufacturers and found that although EVs have fewer parts, their components collectively require more labor-hours than conventional vehicle parts. But the researchers note that despite this, the shift to electric vehicles could still lead to job losses in certain regions depending on where companies choose to locate new battery factories.
While the IRA has seemingly given automakers enough incentives not to move these facilities abroad, many of them are building their plants in southern states where organized labor has always struggled to gain a foothold.
Outside analysts predict the negotiations will break down and lead to a strike. Four years ago, when the union went on strike against GM for 40 days during the last round of negotiations, it cost the company $3.6 billion. Workers lost nearly $1 billion in wages.
UAW leadership began to prepare its members for that possibility during its town hall last month.
“I want to be clear on this, and I know this might sound crazy, but the choice of whether or not we go on strike is up to the Big Three,” said UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock. “We are clear about what we want.”
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On environmental justice grants, melting glaciers, and Amazon’s carbon credits
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms are expected across the Mississippi Valley this weekend • Storm Martinho pushed Portugal’s wind power generation to “historic maximums” • It’s 62 degrees Fahrenheit, cloudy, and very quiet at Heathrow Airport outside London, where a large fire at an electricity substation forced the international travel hub to close.
President Trump invoked emergency powers Thursday to expand production of critical minerals and reduce the nation’s reliance on other countries. The executive order relies on the Defense Production Act, which “grants the president powers to ensure the nation’s defense by expanding and expediting the supply of materials and services from the domestic industrial base.”
Former President Biden invoked the act several times during his term, once to accelerate domestic clean energy production, and another time to boost mining and critical minerals for the nation’s large-capacity battery supply chain. Trump’s order calls for identifying “priority projects” for which permits can be expedited, and directs the Department of the Interior to prioritize mineral production and mining as the “primary land uses” of federal lands that are known to contain minerals.
Critical minerals are used in all kinds of clean tech, including solar panels, EV batteries, and wind turbines. Trump’s executive order doesn’t mention these technologies, but says “transportation, infrastructure, defense capabilities, and the next generation of technology rely upon a secure, predictable, and affordable supply of minerals.”
Anonymous current and former staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency have penned an open letter to the American people, slamming the Trump administration’s attacks on climate grants awarded to nonprofits under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The letter, published in Environmental Health News, focuses mostly on the grants that were supposed to go toward environmental justice programs, but have since been frozen under the current administration. For example, Climate United was awarded nearly $7 billion to finance clean energy projects in rural, Tribal, and low-income communities.
“It is a waste of taxpayer dollars for the U.S. government to cancel its agreements with grantees and contractors,” the letter states. “It is fraud for the U.S. government to delay payments for services already received. And it is an abuse of power for the Trump administration to block the IRA laws that were mandated by Congress.”
The lives of 2 billion people, or about a quarter of the human population, are threatened by melting glaciers due to climate change. That’s according to UNESCO’s new World Water Development Report, released to correspond with the UN’s first World Day for Glaciers. “As the world warms, glaciers are melting faster than ever, making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme,” the report says. “And because of glacial retreat, floods, droughts, landslides, and sea-level rise are intensifying, with devastating consequences for people and nature.” Some key stats about the state of the world’s glaciers:
In case you missed it: Amazon has started selling “high-integrity science-based carbon credits” to its suppliers and business customers, as well as companies that have committed to being net-zero by 2040 in line with Amazon’s Climate Pledge, to help them offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
“The voluntary carbon market has been challenged with issues of transparency, credibility, and the availability of high-quality carbon credits, which has led to skepticism about nature and technological carbon removal as an effective tool to combat climate change,” said Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer at Amazon. “However, the science is clear: We must halt and reverse deforestation and restore millions of miles of forests to slow the worst effects of climate change. We’re using our size and high vetting standards to help promote additional investments in nature, and we are excited to share this new opportunity with companies who are also committed to the difficult work of decarbonizing their operations.”
The Bureau of Land Management is close to approving the environmental review for a transmission line that would connect to BluEarth Renewables’ Lucky Star wind project, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman reports in The Fight. “This is a huge deal,” she says. “For the last two months it has seemed like nothing wind-related could be approved by the Trump administration. But that may be about to change.”
BLM sent local officials an email March 6 with a draft environmental assessment for the transmission line, which is required for the federal government to approve its right-of-way under the National Environmental Policy Act. According to the draft, the entirety of the wind project is sited on private property and “no longer will require access to BLM-administered land.”
The email suggests this draft environmental assessment may soon be available for public comment. BLM’s web page for the transmission line now states an approval granting right-of-way may come as soon as May. BLM last week did something similar with a transmission line that would go to a solar project proposed entirely on private lands. Holzman wonders: “Could private lands become the workaround du jour under Trump?”
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, this week launched a pilot direct air capture unit capable of removing 12 tons of carbon dioxide per year. In 2023 alone, the company’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions totalled 72.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
If you live in Illinois or Massachusetts, you may yet get your robust electric vehicle infrastructure.
Robust incentive programs to build out electric vehicle charging stations are alive and well — in Illinois, at least. ComEd, a utility provider for the Chicago area, is pushing forward with $100 million worth of rebates to spur the installation of EV chargers in homes, businesses, and public locations around the Windy City. The program follows up a similar $87 million investment a year ago.
Federal dollars, once the most visible source of financial incentives for EVs and EV infrastructure, are critically endangered. Automakers and EV shoppers fear the Trump administration will attack tax credits for purchasing or leasing EVs. Executive orders have already suspended the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, a.k.a. NEVI, which was set up to funnel money to states to build chargers along heavily trafficked corridors. With federal support frozen, it’s increasingly up to the automakers, utilities, and the states — the ones with EV-friendly regimes, at least — to pick up the slack.
Illinois’ investment has been four years in the making. In 2021, the state established an initiative to have a million EVs on its roads by 2030, and ComEd’s new program is a direct outgrowth. The new $100 million investment includes $53 million in rebates for business and public sector EV fleet purchases, $38 million for upgrades necessary to install public and private Level 2 and Level 3 chargers, stations for non-residential customers, and $9 million to residential customers who buy and install home chargers, with rebates of up to $3,750 per charger.
Massachusetts passed similar, sweeping legislation last November. Its bill was aimed to “accelerate clean energy development, improve energy affordability, create an equitable infrastructure siting process, allow for multistate clean energy procurements, promote non-gas heating, expand access to electric vehicles and create jobs and support workers throughout the energy transition.” Amid that list of hifalutin ambition, the state included something interesting and forward-looking: a pilot program of 100 bidirectional chargers meant to demonstrate the power of vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-home, and other two-way charging integrations that could help make the grid of the future more resilient.
Many states, blue ones especially, have had EV charging rebates in places for years. Now, with evaporating federal funding for EVs, they have to take over as the primary benefactor for businesses and residents looking to electrify, as well as a financial level to help states reach their public targets for electrification.
Illinois, for example, saw nearly 29,000 more EVs added to its roads in 2024 than 2023, but that growth rate was actually slower than the previous year, which mirrors the national narrative of EV sales continuing to grow, but more slowly than before. In the time of hostile federal government, the state’s goal of jumping from about 130,000 EVs now to a million in 2030 may be out of reach. But making it more affordable for residents and small businesses to take the leap should send the numbers in the right direction, as will a state-backed attempt to create more public EV chargers.
The private sector is trying to juice charger expansion, too. Federal funding or not, the car companies need a robust nationwide charging network to boost public confidence as they roll out more electric offerings. Ionna — the charging station partnership funded by the likes of Hyundai, BMW, General Motors, Honda, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Toyota — is opening new chargers at Sheetz gas stations. It promises to open 1,000 new charging bays this year and 30,000 by 2030.
Hyundai, being the number two EV company in America behind much-maligned Tesla, has plenty at stake with this and similar ventures. No surprise, then, that its spokesperson told Automotive Dive that Ionna doesn’t rely on federal dollars and will press on regardless of what happens in Washington. Regardless of the prevailing winds in D.C., Hyundai/Kia is motivated to support a growing national network to boost the sales of models on the market like the Hyundai Ioniq5 and Kia EV6, as well as the company’s many new EVs in the pipeline. They’re not alone. Mercedes-Benz, for example, is building a small supply of branded high-power charging stations so its EV drivers can refill their batteries in Mercedes luxury.
The fate of the federal NEVI dollars is still up in the air. The clearinghouse on this funding shows a state-by-state patchwork. More than a dozen states have some NEVI-funded chargers operational, but a few have gotten no further than having their plans for fiscal year 2024 approved. Only Rhode Island has fully built out its planned network. It’s possible that monies already allocated will go out, despite the administration’s attempt to kill the program.
In the meantime, Tesla’s Supercharger network is still king of the hill, and with a growing number of its stations now open to EVs from other brands (and a growing number of brands building their new EVs with the Tesla NACS charging port), Superchargers will be the most convenient option for lots of electric drivers on road trips. Unless the alternatives can become far more widespread and reliable, that is.
The increasing state and private focus on building chargers is good for all EV drivers, starting with those who haven’t gone in on an electric car yet and are still worried about range or charger wait times on the road to their destination. It is also, by the way, good news for the growing number of EV folks looking to avoid Elon Musk at all cost.
From Kansas to Brooklyn, the fire is turning battery skeptics into outright opponents.
The symbol of the American battery backlash can be found in the tiny town of Halstead, Kansas.
Angry residents protesting a large storage project proposed by Boston developer Concurrent LLC have begun brandishing flashy yard signs picturing the Moss Landing battery plant blaze, all while freaking out local officials with their intensity. The modern storage project bears little if any resemblance to the Moss Landing facility, which uses older technology,, but that hasn’t calmed down anxious locals or stopped news stations from replaying footage of the blaze in their coverage of the conflict.
The city of Halstead, under pressure from these locals, is now developing a battery storage zoning ordinance – and explicitly saying this will not mean a project “has been formally approved or can be built in the city.” The backlash is now so intense that Halstead’s mayor Dennis Travis has taken to fighting back against criticism on Facebook, writing in a series of posts about individuals in his community “trying to rule by MOB mentality, pushing out false information and intimidating” volunteers working for the city. “I’m exercising MY First Amendment Right and well, if you don’t like it you can kiss my grits,” he wrote. Other posts shared information on the financial benefits of building battery storage and facts to dispel worries about battery fires. “You might want to close your eyes and wish this technology away but that is not going to happen,” another post declared. “Isn’t it better to be able to regulate it in our community?”
What’s happening in Halstead is a sign of a slow-spreading public relations wildfire that’s nudging communities that were already skeptical of battery storage over the edge into outright opposition. We’re not seeing any evidence that communities are transforming from supportive to hostile – but we are seeing new areas that were predisposed to dislike battery storage grow more aggressive and aghast at the idea of new projects.
Heatmap Pro data actually tells the story quite neatly: Halstead is located in Harvey County, a high risk area for developers that already has a restrictive ordinance banning all large-scale solar and wind development. There’s nothing about battery storage on the books yet, but our own opinion poll modeling shows that individuals in this county are more likely to oppose battery storage than renewable energy.
We’re seeing this phenomenon play out elsewhere as well. Take Fannin County, Texas, where residents have begun brandishing the example of Moss Landing to rail against an Engie battery storage project, and our modeling similarly shows an intense hostility to battery projects. The same can be said about Brooklyn, New York, where anti-battery concerns are far higher in our polling forecasts – and opposition to battery storage on the ground is gaining steam.