Workers at GM/LG battery plant in Tennessee join UAW, get big pay raise

DETROIT (AP) — About 1,000 workers at a General Motors joint venture electric vehicle battery plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., will get big pay raises now that they have joined the United Auto Workers union.

GM and LG Energy Solution of Korea, which jointly run the plant, agreed to recognize the union after most workers signed cards saying they wanted to join, the UAW said Wednesday.

Both sides will negotiate local contract provisions, but employee wages and other details will fall under the national UAW contract negotiated last fall, the union said in a prepared statement. The original wage, which was $20 an hour, will rise to a minimum of $27.72. In three years, the minimum wage for manufacturing workers will rise to $30.88, the contract states.

The joint venture, Ultium Cells LLC, said in a statement that the union’s recognition came after an independently certified process that ended Tuesday. “We believe this will support continuity of operations, drive innovation and enhance world-class manufacturing,” the statement said.

The battery plant representation gives the UAW another foothold in the southern states as it tries to organize non-unionized auto plants. Workers at a 4,300-employee Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted in April to join the union, and contract negotiations are expected to begin this month.

But the union lost its first organizing vote in May at a Mercedes assembly plant and other facilities near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Spring Hill is the second GM joint venture battery plant to join the union and fall under the national contract. Workers at a plant near Warren, Ohio, have voted to join the union in 2022.

Battery cell production began in Spring Hill earlier this year.

(AP photo)

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