The United Auto Workers Union has preliminarily won an election at a fourth electric vehicle battery plant in the U.S.
More than 1,000 workers at the BlueOval SK Battery Park in the Kentucky town of Glendale voted to join the UAW, which represents thousands of Ford workers across the country.
Results of the two-day election were released Wednesday night showing 526 hourly production and maintenance workers voted in favor of organizing while 515 opposed unionization. However, 41 ballots are being challenged, which could tip the outcome in the other direction.
“There are 41 challenge ballots still outstanding. We believe they are illegitimate and represent nothing more than an employer tactic to flood the unit and undermine the outcome,” the UAW said in a statement. “The UAW is calling on Ford to acknowledge the democratic decision of its workforce.”
While workers in Glendale want wages and benefits comparable to other autoworkers, safety surfaced as the key issue for pro-union workers.
The company had hoped to maintain a "direct relationship with employees.
Following the election results, BlueOval SK said the outcome of the election depends on whether the National Labor Relations Board will count the challenged ballots.
“BlueOval SK will urge the Board to count each eligible vote because every voice matters,” the company said in an emailed statement to WKU Public Radio.
The nearly $6 billion joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and its South Korean partner SK On produces batteries that will power the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup and the extended range E-Transit cargo van.
Production at BlueOval in Glendale started Aug. 19, a week after Ford announced it will invest $2 billion in its Louisville Assembly Plant to produce a cheaper, mid-size electric truck. Those vehicles will be powered by lower-cost batteries made at a Michigan factory.
Gov. Andy Beshear touts the Glendale battery campus off I-65 in Hardin County as the single largest economic investment in Kentucky history. But slow consumer demand for EVs has tempered the project. The BlueOval SK Battery Park includes two manufacturing plants, but production is underway at only one. The project was originally promised to have 5,000 employees at the twin plants, but the current workforce stands closer to 1,450.
Blue Oval SK is the only battery plant involving the Big Three automakers that is non-union. GM's Ultium plants in Ohio and Tennessee already operate under a UAW contract, and the Stellantis StarPlus Energy plant in Indiana joined the union and ratified their local agreement earlier this year.
A BlueOval SK victory would give the UAW a stronger foothold in the South as organized labor across the U.S. has been stagnant in recent years and on the decline from the 1980s, when membership was around 20%. Nationwide, union members accounted for 9.9 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2024, little changed from the previous year.
Before BlueOval SK workers in Kentucky voted to unionize, the UAW won an election by Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2024. That was the first time the UAW was able to organize a plant in the American South. Workers at the Ultium plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, also voted last year to unionize.
The union lost an organizing vote at two Mercedes-Benz factories in Alabama last year and at the Navistar powertrain manufacturing plant earlier this month.
Both the UAW and BlueOval SK declined to comment on the process for challenging the election before the NLRB.
If the election results stand, the next steps for Glendale EV battery workers would be to form their own local and begin working toward a contract with BlueOval SK.
