In a video posted online this week, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said benefits of the shift toward EVs — including government funding — are reaching employers, but not employees.
"The Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, are taking billions of dollars in government subsidies to go electric, but those benefits aren't trickling down to UAW members," union president Shawn Fain says in the video.
The union particularly cites the 2019 closure of a General Motors (GM) plant in Lordstown, Ohio, where the union says workers were on track to make upwards of $30 per hour.
It noted that after the closure, a new battery plant from Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG, opened up in the area in 2022. But the union said workers there only make $16.50 per hour.
A GM spokesperson said its assembly plants have the same pay structure as its plants for traditional vehicles. Ultium said in a statement that it is "building a culture of working collaboratively and respectfully … to build on our success and resolve issues that come up."
Amid the UAW's concerns, Fain told the union's members in a May memo that the union was holding off on endorsing President Biden.
A White House spokesperson has said previously that the UAW "is working toward the same goal as the President, which is to ensure the future of the auto industry is made here in America, with good-paying, union jobs."
Meanwhile, Republicans have sought to appeal to some of the disenfranchised labor vote.
"It's going to decimate your jobs and it's going to decimate more than anybody else the state of Michigan," former President Trump said during a speech in the swing state last last month.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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