Labor Union Wins This Year Are A Win For EVs

By Carolyn Fortuna - Clean Technica, November 28, 2023

This month the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced that its members ratified new contracts with Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors. The result has been 25% or more raises over the next 4.5 years. Not only is this one of US labor’s biggest achievements in decades, it’s a real win for EVs.

The mass adoption of EVs had the UAW worried. The union recognized that the auto industry was confronting a redefining and disruptive moment with the technological shift inherent in EVs. Whether the automakers would see it as an opportunity to re-invest in US manufacturing, or if they would they rationalize it as a money-grabbing, labor-suppressing excuse, was uncertain.

It was clear that a future in which automakers imported components, outsourced to low-road suppliers, and underpaid workers was a real threat.

In a 2020 white paper, the UAW established its position: “In order to preserve American jobs and work standards, what is needed is a proactive industrial policy that creates high-quality manufacturing jobs making EVs and their components.” That statement became the underlying mantra for contract negotiations focusing on what came to be known as a Fair EV Future.

“Strong environmental standards can be structured as a win-win for the environment, workers, and the economy,” the authors stated, inviting a larger vision of mitigating climate pollution while also protecting US workers. “Environmental policy should be used to address climate change while also promoting investment in future technologies that create quality jobs in the process.”

The UAW efforts rose in momentum and force due to precisely planned organizing and strike activity. Then other workplace unions joined in, and, by summer, 2023, a roiling wave of more than 353,000 US workers had walked off the job to demand higher wages. That included 170,000 Hollywood actors and screenwriters — the largest work stoppage since 1997.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.