About 1,600 workers have been given Feb. 14 as the last day of operations at the electric vehicle battery plant in Glendale.
BlueOval SK announced last week the mega factory off I-65 would close and eliminate the entire workforce as Ford shifts its EV strategy.
The company will launch a new venture, making energy storage systems for data centers and utility companies at the Hardin County industrial site.
The timeline for the terminations was outlined in a Dec. 15 letter from the company, as required by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The layoffs are expected to start on or around Feb. 14 and conclude "at that time or shortly thereafter," according to the WARN notice.
“Our goal is going to be to put as many options in front of those 1,600 Kentuckians," Gov. Andy Beshear said. "What we’ve done is drawn a 45-minute drive radius from Glendale and we’ve compiled all of the jobs announcements we’ve made, and there are a lot of really good spots with really good companies.”
While laid off BlueOval SK workers can apply at Ford’s new facility, it won’t be in operation
until 2027.
It’s expected to take 16 months to remove the EV battery equipment and retool the plant for battery storage.
In the meantime, Beshear says his administration will likely use the BlueOval SK training site at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College as a place to connect those workers with job openings.
Production operator Scott Musgrove of Leitchfield has worked at the plant a year-and-a-half, as well as his fiance. The former contractor says he can fall back on his home renovation business, but other workers are in more dire straits.
“There’s people I know personally that moved from out of state to Kentucky for that job and now they're left in the rain, revamping resumes and going out and basically starting over," Musgrove told WKU Public Radio.
Ford says it plans to hire 2,100 workers in Glendale once it repurposes the plant for energy storage. But Musgrove says he has no desire to work for Ford again.
"It was a waste of my time and I wish I had never applied there knowing what I know now and how they had done pretty much everybody, especially people that are pro-union," Musgrove said.
Since opening, BlueOval SK has facedworker concerns over pay and safety that have resulted in union organizing and lawsuits.
The National Labor Relations Board is expected to decide in the coming days whether to recognize a razor-thin union victory at BlueOval SK.
Workers voted in favor of joining the UAW in August by 11 votes, but the company challenged 41 of the ballots which could reverse the outcome.
The NLRB held a hearing on the contested election last week, just a day after Ford announced it was shuttering the plant.
Ariana Levinson, a law professor at the University of Louisville who specializes in labor and employment, said in addition to deciding whether to count the challenged ballots, the NLRB will determine whether Ford is a successor business under the law.
“If you are a successor and you hire back people who were represented by the union, then you may have to automatically recognize the union," Levinson explained.
Even though the plant and its workforce will cease to exist in 60 days, Ford may be
obligated to bargain with the union over the closure. According to Levinson, the National Labor Relations Act didn't require Ford to consult with the union before making the decision to close, but if the UAW victory is certified, Ford may have to bargain over the shutdown's effects on the workforce.
“The union would definitely be able to bargain over shutdown benefits, whether new people would be hired if there’s a successor business or whether they would hire the people already working there, what order are people going to be brought back in," Levinson added.
If the NLRB sides with the company and the UAW loses the election, workers could file for another election.
