Unions seek broader foothold in the South as workers vote at an EV
battery plant in Kentucky
[August 28, 2025] By
BRUCE SCHREINER
Ballots are being cast Wednesday over a pivotal decision at a Kentucky
manufacturing complex that is producing batteries for electric vehicles.
Workers will decide whether to join the United Auto Workers and extend a
streak of union victories in the South, where organized labor struggled
to find solid footing.
A two-day union vote closes Wednesday, about a week after production
began at the BlueOval SK battery park, a nearly $6 billion joint venture
between Ford Motor Co. and its South Korean partner, SK On.
Batteries from this plant will power the all-electric Ford F-150
Lightning pickup and its EV cargo van, the E-Transit.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says the complex that sprung up in tiny
Glendale — a community of around 2,000 residents an hour south of
Louisville — is the single largest economic investment in Bluegrass
State history.
Pro-union employee Kumari Logan is looking for the security than she
believes only a unionized workforce can deliver.
“My bills are guaranteed, so my pay and benefits should be guaranteed,
too,” Logan said in comments emailed by the union. “Right now they can
just change things whenever they feel like it, and that’s stressful.
With a contract, you’ve got it in writing. You know where you stand.”
On-the-job-safety surfaced as another key issue for pro-union workers.
The company says workplace safety is its top priority.
The company said it wants to maintain a “direct relationship” with its
employees. When battery production started, BlueOval SK CEO Michael
Adams said it is “creating good-paying, American jobs” while
“strengthening the domestic supply chain and driving the transition to
zero-emissions transportation.”
The battery complex includes two manufacturing plants but production has
started at just one of them.
The fate of BlueOval is important to Gov. Beshear, a potential White
House contender in 2028 who openly touts his pro-union credentials. He
said the BlueOval SK project “sparked a surge of new investment and job
announcements that placed Kentucky at the center of EV-related
innovation.”
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 And organized labor has made inroads
in the South in places that are not too different from BlueOval.
Workers at a General Motors joint venture electric vehicle battery
plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, joined the union. Workers at a
Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, also voted to
unionize. In Ohio, workers at another GM joint venture electric
vehicle battery factory voted to join the UAW.
The union lost an organizing vote at two Mercedes factories in
Alabama last year.
Domestic EV battery production is ramping up as the push toward
electrification of the auto industry reaches a crossroads and as
Chinese automakers expand across the globe, offering affordable
electric vehicles and superfast charging stations.
Despite the unwinding by President Donald Trump of incentives meant
to juice electric vehicles sales, the transition by Big Detroit
automakers from internal combustion engines to electric is
happening. Trump’s massive tax and spending law targets EV
incentives, including the imminent removal of a credit that saves
buyers up to $7,500 on a new electric car.
Ford recently said it will invest nearly $2 billion retooling a
Louisville, Kentucky, plant to produce electric vehicles that it
says will be more affordable, more profitable to build and will
outcompete rival models.
The first EV to be produced by the revamped Louisville production
process will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup truck in 2027
for domestic and international markets, the company said. The
electric trucks will be powered by lower-cost batteries made at a
factory in Michigan. Ford previously announced a $3 billion
investment to build the battery factory.
The unionization vote in Kentucky may not be known until late
Wednesday.
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