BlueOval SK workers looking to unionize

[CD4TNF]

Workers at Ford's BlueOval SK battery plant looking to unionize. They got approval from the labor board. Voting is next step. News report mentioned the Lighting's batteries will be coming from this plant.

Thoughts on plant workers unionizing?

Anyone heard news of the battery manufacturer location shift?


American EV jobs = good American jobs.

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[djwildstar]

Workers at Ford's BlueOval SK battery plant looking to unionize. [...] Thoughts on plant workers unionizing? [...] American EV jobs = good American jobs.

The Lightning is built by UAW labor at Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn. Because of that, I don't expect that there would be any significant change for consumers if the batteries are also built by union labor.

I'm supportive of the BlueOval SK workers' right to unionize.
In general, American union jobs are good American jobs.

 

[Newton]

The feature that would get me to pay extra is 350kW charging. Now that everybody has Tesla access (I know, they don’t have 350kW yet) that is what makes the difference. With the potential for fast charging and Tesla access my EV6 doesn’t feel any different to road trip than an ICE vehicle. With my tactic of putting in just as much as I need, it is hardly worth it to get back into the car while charging at a super fast charger.

It just isn’t as comfortable as the Lightning.

 

[WXman]

I live close to both the Ford Truck Plant and the SK plant. All I will say is this: Honda and Toyota have always made the best vehicles in the country, and there's one thing they both have in common....no union.

 

[Joe.....Montana]

I live close to both the Ford Truck Plant and the SK plant. All I will say is this: Honda and Toyota have always made the best vehicles in the country, and there's one thing they both have in common....no union.

Not much nuance there...I have no clue about the auto industry, but I have worked for several corporate retail companies at different levels throughout my life. In my younger years I worked for Safeway and they constantly talked about "let us know if anyone speaks of unionizing". Pay was minimum wage and it felt like any other teenage job. In college I worked for Costco. Never a mention of "let us know if anyone speaks of unionizing". Pay was top notch, ability to purchase stocks after 90 or 120 days (can't remember now), ability to get health insurance after same time period, amazing work environment where they actually considered you as more than an employee...also worked for Target, same company line as Safeway, "make sure the entry level employees are clearly educated on the negative effects of unions and to report any unionizing activity." Target would also purposefully pull back on employee hours when they started to get close to having the ability to receive health benefits. Needless to say, employee productivity, population of potential hires, and employee retention were vastly different at each location...and it had nothing to do with a union/or not.

 

[ryun]

Also Tesla has no union either and there are numerous complaints from owners about build quality. Or just look at the cybertruck with panels falling off or the stuck accelerator pedal issue.

 

[djwildstar]

Honda and Toyota have always made the best vehicles in the country, and there's one thing they both have in common....no union.

There are many partisan opinion papers on the pro- and anti-union side, but relatively little in the way of clearly unbiased research. The little I can find suggests that unionization (or not) has very little to do with build quality in and of itself. In head-to-head comparisons (meaning, similar products with similar number and complexity of assembly steps), union auto plants build cars with similar or better quality than non-union plants do.

The key reasons for Toyota and Honda build quality is that the Japanese automakers tend to build smaller vehicles that require fewer steps and less labor to construct. The Japanese also have a more-rigorous quality-control culture in their assembly lines. The unionized US automakers tend to focus on larger, more-complex vehicles that require more steps to build (and therefore have more opportunities for error).

It is illustrative to look at head-to-head comparisons: last year I checked the percentage of branded titles versus the number of late-model full-size pickups for sale on a popular used car website. The general idea is that this should be roughly proportional to the number of lemon-law buybacks of new trucks -- a carmaker with a higher percentage was building "worse" vehicles.

At that time, the highest branded title percentage was for Toyota. This suggests that despite its reputation for quality, Toyota was building a less-reliable full-size pickup than its competitors. This corresponds well to recent reports of manufacturing debris in the engine block, bearing failures, and transmission issues for Toyota trucks.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

it is interesting to often see discussions about union vs non-union workers;
and yet rarely see any discussion at all about monopolies vs antimonopoly policies for major industries...

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