GM Stock Is Up. The UAW Is Helping to Make EVs More Acceptable.
stock was up 3.2%, at $47.18, in midday trading Monday while the
and
were flat and up 0.1%, respectively. Shares are on pace for their highest close since February 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
One reason for improving investor sentiment is a new tentative labor deal between the UAW and GM at the auto maker’s EV battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
Now that a tentative agreement is reached, employees have to vote to ratify the contract.
“Eighteen months ago, this company was on a low-road path to poverty wages, unsafe conditions, and a dark future for battery workers in America,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a news release. “Ultium workers said, ‘Hell no,’ got organized, and fought back. Now they’ve more than doubled their wages by the end of this contract, won record health and safety language, and showed the world what it means to win a just transition.”
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“We’re pleased that there is a tentative agreement with the UAW at the Ultium Cells Joint Venture in Warren, Ohio,” GM said in response to a request for comment. “The agreement will now move into the ratification process.”
The UAW didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about wage levels.
Some details are available. Workers will get a roughly 30% wage bump over three years. There is also a $3,000 ratification bonus.
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Fain doesn’t typically mince words, and the rhetoric shows investors how the UAW felt about potentially nonunion battery plants and electric vehicles. The union didn’t like the idea of UAW members who build gasoline engines morphing into battery workers with no union representation.
It impacted how the union viewed EVs. A year ago, Fain ripped the Biden Administration for subsidizing a
EV project in Tennessee. That was before the 2023 UAW negotiations that ended with record wage increases as well as the right for the UAW to negotiate on behalf of battery workers.
Union representation at battery plants will help make labor feel a little more neutral about EVs.
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That can only help take the political pressure down. The politics of EVs is tough to deny. Polls consistently show that a majority of conservatives won’t consider an all-electric car while a majority of liberals will. What’s more, former President Trump has consistently criticized EVs staking out the opposite ground of President Joe Biden, who backs the technology.
More EV jobs, and unionized EV jobs, spread out across the U.S. in states that vote both red and blue, however, make it harder to politicize the powertrain.
More than 40 battery plants have been announced, are under construction, or are operating in states including Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and others.
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The total capacity of announced plants would be enough to make more than 12 million EVs, but that won’t fully come on line for several years. Now, about 16 million new cars are sold in the U.S. each year.
Investors seem to recognize that, too. Less EV politics makes the job for GM a little easier in the future. Instead of selling EVs to half of the country. They can try to sell them to everyone on the merits of the technology.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
