BlueOval SK Battery Builders File NLRB Petition for UAW Representation
Seven weeks since workers at the BlueOval SK plant announced a campaign to join the United Auto Workers, the group has submitted an official union representation petition to the NLRB calling for an election. Union organizers, in a release, note that the action is the union’s first major organizing step of the new year and its latest move in the traditionally union-scarce South.
BlueOval SK is a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and SK On, a Korean battery manufacturer. The venture’s Elizabethtown, Kentucky location is about an hour south of Ford’s UAW-represented Louisville plant.
BOSK workers quoted by union organizers complained that conditions at the plant are unsafe, and some alleged they were ordered by management to work without proper protective equipment. In a December town hall meeting held by the UAW, BOSK workers met with Ultium Cells union members from that company’s Lordstown, Ohio branch, which joined the UAW in 2022.
According to union organizers, a “supermajority” of BOSK workers had signed cards indicating support for UAW representation as early as November last year. The union has not specified a percentage or number of workers who had signed cards.
In BOSK, UAW leaders are hoping for a repeat of its successes at comparable company Ultium Cells, LLC. Ultium and Bosk are both joint ventures between a Detroit-based UAW-represented automaker and a Korean electronics company formed to build batteries for electric vehicles. Ultium is a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution with two locations, one in Lordstown, Ohio, and the other in Spring Hill, Tennessee: the UAW held successful locations to represent both.
Outside of battery plants, the election will be the latest bellwether in the UAW’s push for more represented plants in the South. The union has more of a mixed record there: Last year, the UAW won an election to represent Volkswagen’s Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant, but lost one to represent a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama.
