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LORDSTOWN -- New United Auto Workers union president Shawn Fain last week met with workers at Ultium Cells, he said, to hear what they had to say about work and safety at the electric-vehicle battery-cell factory.
The meetings were Wednesday and Thursday, which was also the same day Fain addressed the UAW membership from the Local 1112 hall during a live broadcast on the union's Facebook page.
Part of Fain's message was around wages at the factory, the first one built and producing battery cells in a joint venture between General Motors and South Korea's LG Energy Solution.
The facility is adjacent to the small-car assembly plant that GM shuttered in 2019.
"It's shameful these workers are here at a battery EV plant, a brand new plant, dealing with risks. There are health and safety risks with these jobs, there's a lot of chemicals and things they deal with, and they are starting at $16.50 an hour, and in seven years, they will make $20 an hour when they can to the Waffle House right down the street and start at $18 an hour," Fain said.
An email seeking comment from Ultium Cells was sent Friday afternoon.
Workers at the plant in December voted to unionize under UAW, making them the first to decide union representation at a battery plant. The National Labor Relations Board oversaw a vote that tallied 710 to 16.
Negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement were supposed to start in January.
Fain and UAW Secretary / Treasurer Margaret Mock, also spent time recently in Washington, D.C., to relay the message to the "transition to EV has to be what we are calling a just transition."
"Our message to the government last week was it's shameful that our government is giving billions of dollars in tax incentives to these companies and meanwhile they are paying poverty-level wages to our workers," Fain said.
Fain also said although technology plays a role in forming joint ventures, he believes the partnerships formed by the Big Three automakers is "because they didn't want to have any obligation to our workers, to our members and they sure as hell didn't want to have any obligation to the master agreements that we have," Fain said.
"So in my opinion … they formed these joint ventures to try to circumvent that," Fain said.
On April 27, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont tweeted a 5-minute, 15-second video of a conversation he had with Fain and Mock. In that, Fain and Sanders talked about GM closing the assembly plant and Ultium Cells.
Fain said before the plant closed, workers there were earning about $32 or more. Starting a wage one-half as much, Sanders said, "is, to say the least, going in the absolutely wrong direction."