batteries

By staff - Asian Network for Rights of Occupational and Accident Victims, June 25, 2024

The Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims (ANROEV) condemns the gross negligence and violations of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) rights that resulted in the tragic death of 23 workers in a blaze at a South Korean lithium battery plant. The factory, operated by Aricell in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-Do, caught fire following a series of battery explosions. Officials report that the victims likely succumbed to extremely toxic gas. Among the 23 deceased workers, 17 were Chinese, 5 were South Koreans, and one was a Laos national. Additionally, 17 of the deceased were women and 6 were men.

The chemicals used in battery manufacturing are highly flammable, making stringent safety measures critical. However, it is evident that the safety of the workers at Aricell was neglected. This incident highlights severe lapses in safety protocols, with catastrophic consequences.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has condemned the incident as the worst chemical explosion and the largest industrial accident involving migrant workers in South Korea’s history. They emphasized that this disaster was foreseeable and preventable, given the history of lithium battery explosions and the inadequate safety measures at the factory.

Despite numerous safety checks, no effective countermeasures were implemented.

It has called for immediate and thorough support for the victims and their families, transparent communication regarding the cause of the accident, involvement of the victims’ families in the accident investigation, and strict enforcement of the Serious Disasters Punishment Act to ensure severe penalties for those responsible.

The National Metal Workers’ Union echoed these sentiments, highlighting the repeated failure to prioritize worker safety over profit. They noted that the fire and subsequent explosions at Aricell underline the systemic issues within the industry, particularly the exploitation and inadequate protection of migrant workers. The union calls for a complete overhaul of industrial safety systems and a thorough investigation to prevent such disasters from recurring.

ANROEV extends its heartfelt sympathy to the families of the workers who died in this workplace tragedy. It also stands in solidarity with labor groups calling for immediate assistance to the families of the deceased and the injured workers. We demand swift justice for those who lost their lives at work. The South Korean government must hold Aricell accountable for this gross negligence and ensure that such violations of OSH rights are met with appropriate punishment according to national laws.

This tragedy underscores the urgent need for strong safety regulations and strict enforcement to protect all workers, regardless of their nationality or employment status. The safety and health of workers must be the highest priority, and systemic changes are essential to prevent future tragedies.

By Schuyler Mitchell and Keith Brower Brown - Labor Notes, February 22, 2024

The smell of mold hit James “Lucky” Dugan the moment he walked into the plant.

Last fall, Dugan was one of thousands of union construction workers to arrive in small-town Glendale, Kentucky, to build a vast factory for Ford and SK On, a South Korean company. The plant, when completed, will make batteries for nearly a million electric pickup trucks each year.

When Dugan walked in, huge wooden boxes containing battery-making machines, largely shipped from overseas, were laid across the mile-long factory floor. Black streaks on those wooden boxes, plus the smell, immediately raised alarm bells for workers. But for months, those concerns were met with little remedy from the contractors hired by BlueOval to oversee construction.

Dugan and scores of others now believe they are in the midst of a health crisis at the site. “We don’t get sick pay,” Dugan said. “You’re sick, you’re out of luck.”

The BlueOval SK Battery Park, billed to open in 2025, is a banner project for President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a program of public subsidies and financing to companies moving away from fossil fuels. The Department of Energy has pledged to support the construction of three BlueOval plants in Tennessee and Kentucky with a $9.2 billion low-cost loan.

But under all the high-tech green fanfare, several construction workers, including some who wished to be anonymous, say the site has been gripped by mold and respiratory illness—medieval hazards that workers feel managers neglected in the pressure to quickly open the plant.

By Simon Evans - Carbon Brief, October 24, 2023

Electric vehicles (EVs) significantly cut lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions in almost all circumstances and are the key technology for decarbonising road transport.

While not having a car has even larger climate benefits, many peoples’ ability to go car-free is limited by their circumstances and the availability of alternatives.

This means EVs are “likely crucial” for tackling transport emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

EV sales are growing fast, accounting for one in every seven cars sold globally in 2022 – up from one-in-70 just five years earlier.

Yet EVs are also being subjected to relentless hostile reporting across mainstream media in many major economies, including the UK.

Here, Carbon Brief factchecks 21 of the most common – and persistent – myths about EVs.

• FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even’
• FALSE: ‘VW’s e-Golf becomes more environmentally friendly only after 77,000 miles’
• FALSE: The ‘electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven around 68,400 miles to cut carbon’
• FALSE: ‘Electric vehicles have little or no CO2 advantage over the car you already drive’
• FALSE: ‘Climate change is accelerating because of the ban on combustion-engines’
• FALSE: ‘Old bangers are the green motorist’s choice’
• FALSE: ‘EVs simply displace carbon emissions from roads to distant power stations’
• MOSTLY FALSE: ‘Electric cars are not green machines’
• INCOMPLETE: ‘Electric vehicles alone can’t solve climate change’
• FALSE: ‘EVs are [low-mileage] runabouts…[that] take a long time to pay off their carbon debt’
• FALSE: ‘Synthetic petrol could displace electric vehicles’
• FALSE: ‘Hydrogen cars are more sustainable than EVs’
• FALSE: ‘Sales of electric vehicles appear to be slowing’
• FALSE: ‘Electric cars could soon be more expensive to drive than their petrol equivalents’
• FALSE: ‘There are insufficient raw materials…for all vehicles to be EVs’
• FALSE: The lifetime of EV batteries is ‘horribly uncertain’
• FALSE: ‘Electric vehicles can explode – petrol ones only do it in movies’
• FALSE: ‘Under Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, 40% of US auto jobs will disappear’
• FALSE: ‘Electric car revolution at crisis point’ due to ‘charging point shortage’
• FALSE: ‘Britain’s creaking power grid cannot cope with charging electric cars’
• FALSE: ‘How your super heavy EV produces MORE pollution than petrol and diesel cars’

By Luis Feliz Leon - In These Times, August 30, 2023

Thirty-year-old Rick Savage was among the first workers hired at Ultium Cells’ 2.8-million-square-foot battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in April 2022. ​“I heard about the battery plant and how it was going to be technologically superior to all other manufacturing companies,” Savage remembers thinking. ​“The future of the automotive industry is going to be electric.”

Ultium Cells was a high-profile joint venture between U.S. automaker General Motors and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution. The Lordstown plant — billed as the largest battery plant of its kind anywhere in the country — was predicted to cost some $2.3 billion and generate more than 1,100 new jobs. GM’s legacy as a union employer was part of the company’s sales pitch to new employees. 

“They were saying, ​‘Hey, it’s the next GM, you can retire here, it’s going to be great,’” Savage says.

Deindustrialization has been battering northeastern Ohio for half a century. Ohio hemorrhaged 50,000 jobs within five years after Youngstown Sheet & Tube shuttered its Campbell Works steel factory in 1977. In 2008, after GM shuttered its facility in Moraine, 2,000 autoworkers were left without jobs. The Chinese automotive-glass manufacturer Fuyao hired some of them when it took over the closed plant in 2014, but at much lower wages.

By Julia Conley - Common Dreams, August 15, 2023

The president of the United Auto Workers on Tuesday called on U.S. President Joe Biden to use his position of power to help ensure a just transition to electric vehicles—pushing for a major investment in green technology that would also guarantee that workers in the U.S. can earn a decent living in the evolving auto industry.

Biden's actions on the electric vehicle (EV) front, Shawn Fain toldThe Guardian, have been "disappointing."

It has been a year since the president signed his signature climate and jobs law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes incentives for car companies to ramp up manufacturing of EVs and for consumers to purchase them.

The law has paved the way for the "Big Three" automakers—Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors (GM)—to build EV battery plants in joint ventures with companies such as Samsung, SK On, and LG Energy Solution, but the federal incentives and loans have been given to the firms without the guarantee of fair pay and working conditions for the people who will work in the plants.

By Jacob Whiton and Greg LeRoy - Good Jobs First, July 2023

Under a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, some factories making batteries for electric vehicles will each receive more than a billion dollars per year from the U.S. government, with no requirement to pay good wages to production workers. Thanks to the Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit, also called 45X for its section in the Internal Revenue Code, battery companies will receive tax credits that they can use, sell, or cash out.

The 45X program alone will cost taxpayers over $200 billion in the next decade, far more than the $31 billion estimated by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. On top of 45X and other federal incentives, factories manufacturing electric vehicles and batteries have also been promised well over $13 billion in state and local economic development incentives in just the past 18 months.

What do local communities get from companies in exchange for public money? The Biden administration says the IRA will create “good-paying union jobs,” but the federal tax credit has no job quality requirements for permanent jobs and doesn’t mandate companies pay market-based wages or benefits.

Good Jobs First did the math for five recently announced battery factories. Here’s what we learned:

• Total subsidies will range from $2 million to $7 million per job.

• Average annual wages, as announced, will be below the current national average for production workers in the automotive sector.

• The 45X credit alone is large enough to cover each facility’s initial capital investment cost and wage bill for the first several years of production.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Dan DiMaggio - Labor Notes, May 18, 2023

Contracts covering 150,000 auto workers at the Big 3 will expire on September 14, and the new leadership of the United Auto Workers is taking a more aggressive stance than in years past.

“We’re going to launch our biggest contract campaign ever in our history,” UAW President Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook live video.

Fain took office in March after winning the union’s first one member, one vote election. Running on the slogan, “No Corruption, No Concessions, No Tiers,” he and the Members United slate swept all the positions they ran for, giving reformers a majority on the international executive board.

While the union has vowed to take on tiered wages and benefits, job security, and plant closures, the transition to electric vehicles (EV) looms especially large.

Since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act last August, companies have announced $120 billion in investments in domestic EV and battery manufacturing. The Act includes big tax credits and incentives for clean energy and EVs.

Ford alone is investing $11 billion in a new EV assembly plant and battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Biden administration wants EVs to make up half of all new vehicles sold by 2030.

By Dan DiMaggio - Labor Notes, May 18, 2023

Contracts covering 150,000 auto workers at the Big 3 will expire on September 14, and the new leadership of the United Auto Workers is taking a more aggressive stance than in years past.

“We’re going to launch our biggest contract campaign ever in our history,” UAW President Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook live video.

Fain took office in March after winning the union’s first one member, one vote election. Running on the slogan, “No Corruption, No Concessions, No Tiers,” he and the Members United slate swept all the positions they ran for, giving reformers a majority on the international executive board.

While the union has vowed to take on tiered wages and benefits, job security, and plant closures, the transition to electric vehicles (EV) looms especially large.

Since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act last August, companies have announced $120 billion in investments in domestic EV and battery manufacturing. The Act includes big tax credits and incentives for clean energy and EVs.

Ford alone is investing $11 billion in a new EV assembly plant and battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Biden administration wants EVs to make up half of all new vehicles sold by 2030.

By Maristella Svampa, Thea Riofrancos, and Ashley Dawson - Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, April 25, 2023