Battery Workers Organize To Safeguard Their Health

Rural Kentucky factory workers in the heart of the Southern battery belt filed for election January 7 to join the Auto Workers. More than two-thirds of the 900 hourly workers signed the union petition at BlueOval, a joint venture of Ford and SK On.

Electric vehicle batteries are a booming sector. If these workers succeed in building a strong union, they can set the standard to make these jobs worth keeping, and potentially build a base to take a clean energy transition further.

Ford’s lawyer squad has so far stalled the election, claiming it shouldn’t be held until the complex is fully staffed, potentially with twice as many hands. Conveniently, managers won’t say when that will happen. In 2023, Ford indefinitely delayed the completion date on a twin battery plant next door, citing uncertain consumer demand.

That same year, the Auto Workers strike forced General Motors into a contract to recognize the union in new battery plants, even jointly owned ones, once a majority of workers signed union cards. Ford held out, demanding a ballot election it could more easily fight with old-fashioned union-busting.

THANKS TO THE UNION

Despite the corporate stalling, the threat of the union has already won workers a raise. Just after the organizing drive went public, Ford bumped pay by $2 to $3 an hour plant-wide. New assembly hires now start at $21, while repair and maintenance techs earn almost twice that.

“The crux of our campaign has been safety, safety, safety,” says Halee Hadfield from the materials department. Battery workers handle deadly chemicals every day. She and her department co-workers have been demanding powered, full-face respirator masks.

“In our trainings, we saw photos of workers elsewhere working with the same chemicals, practically in scuba suits,” she said. “But we got nothing.”

Supported by department and plant-wide organizing meetings every other week, union supporters showed their strength with weekly red-shirt days and talked back to supervisors in area meetings. In March, Hadfield said, her supervisor finally announced respirators for her team.

That’s just a start. She heard from workers in the teardown unit, whose dangerous job is testing how to break and recycle used batteries, that a worker brought from Korea as a trainer had provided frank solidarity.

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“He said he always hated doing this work,” Hadfield reported, “and the people doing this should get paid five times what we are.”

INVISIBLE HAZARD

During construction of the plant, serious respiratory illness struck scores of electrical workers for months. After an OSHA complaint, testing found heavy concentrations of mold inside, leading eventually to a brief shutdown and cleaning.

But the problem still appears to be lurking. Over Christmas break, when plant ventilation was turned off, a few workers who took shifts reported the interior reeked like a basement. At least one fell sick, and ended up in the emergency room with breathing difficulties, despite negative tests for flu and Covid.

Workers are also furious over the company’s broken promises on health care and schedules. The “premium” health coverage that attracted many to the job has turned out to cost workers nearly $300 a month, with an $8,000 deductible.

Recruiters had also promised alternating three- and four-day workweeks, with 12-hour shifts, but in March four departments were suddenly kicked to five-day schedules.

Management has juiced up its anti-union campaign, and recently fired three union supporters on flimsy grounds. Write-ups are swift when supervisors hear workers talking pro-union on shift—yet bosses have encouraged an opponent of the drive to organize a “vote no” committee while on the clock.

This double standard instills fear, but it also shows how workers in this emerging industry lack clear lines of defense, Hadfield said: “That just makes more people talk about needing a contract.”

For more content from the April 2025 Jobs and Climate special issue, go here.