The United Auto Workers claimed a narrow victory Wednesday night in a unionization vote at an electric vehicle battery plant in Hardin County, though the election’s outcome remains uncertain because dozens of ballots have been challenged.
A spokesperson for BlueOval SK told the Lantern that workers voted 526-515 in favor of being represented by the union but that 41 challenged ballots had yet to be tabulated, enough votes to potentially change the outcome.
The National Labor Relations Board confirmed the tally Thursday morning and said the challenged ballots “are sufficient to affect the results of the election.”
In an emailed statement, the Detroit-based union claimed a “hard-fought victory” and “a major step forward for workers who stood up against intense company opposition and chose to join the UAW.”
Results from the NLRB:
- Total number of eligible voters: 1,249
- Void ballots: 1
- Votes for union: 526
- Votes against representation: 515
- Total valid votes cast: 1,041
- Challenged ballots: 41
- Total valid votes counted plus challenged ballots: 1,082
The challenged ballots are sufficient to affect the results of the election.
The union said the challenged ballots were “illegitimate” and represented “nothing more than an employer tactic to flood the unit and undermine the outcome.”
“We will fight these challenges to defend the democratic choices of these workers, as we always do when corporations try to interfere with workers’ democratic choice,” the UAW wrote. “The challenged ballots are not part of the group of workers who built their union from the bottom up. They deserve to have their own union, in an appropriate bargaining unit with a representative of their own choosing.”
The union in its statement, issued shortly before midnight, called on Ford Motor Co. to “acknowledge the democratic decision of its workforce” and “drop their anti-democratic effort to undermine the outcome of the election.” BlueOval SK, a massive complex along Interstate 65 in Glendale, is a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and South Korea-based SK On.
Mallory Cooke, a spokesperson for BlueOval SK, in a statement said the outcome of the election would depend on the National Labor Relations Board’s decision of whether the challenged ballots will be counted.
“BlueOval SK will urge the board to count each eligible vote because every voice matters,” Cooke said. “We remain focused on the safety and wellbeing of our team and our commitment to build best-in-class batteries together!”
The preliminary vote must be certified by the National Labor Relations Board to become official. The agency fields and reviews potential objections to ballots and election conduct before certifying the result.
The votes cast over Tuesday and Wednesday culminated a nine-month campaign by the UAW to unionize the electric vehicle battery manufacturing complex, which began production last week. State officials previously described the complex as the “single-largest economic development investment in state history” that would employ 5,000 people when a second planned plant becomes operational.
If the UAW is successful in the election, it would mark another victory for the union after successfully organizing other electric vehicle battery plants including most recently in Indiana. The UAW’s efforts are part of its broader push to unionize electric vehicle battery plants across the country, although organizing in the South has been more challenging.
Tensions had flared leading up to the election between the UAW and the BlueOval SK over workplace safety issues, and the union called on the National Labor Relations Board last month to investigate what it alleged was a “scorched-earth” anti-union campaign by BlueOval SK. The company had denied assertions from workers about workplace safety and had dismissed the UAW’s call for an investigation as a “dishonest tactic.”
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Written by Liam Niemeyer. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
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