Auto Union Says Workers Aren’t Seeing Higher Wages Despite EV Government Benefits

A GMC Hummer EV truck is shown at General Motors' Factory Zero in Detroit on Aug. 5, 2021. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has expressed concern that U.S. government subsidies that have been steered to major automakers for producing electric vehicles haven’t improved workers’ wages.

“The Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—are taking billions of dollars in government subsidies to go electric, but those benefits aren’t trickling down to UAW members,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video posted on July 5.

The union cited the 2019 closure of a General Motors (GM) plant in Lordstown, Ohio, where the union workers were on track to make as much as $30 per hour. In 2022, a joint venture of GM and LG Electronics opened a new electric vehicle (EV) battery plant on the site.

The union said workers at that plant make $16.50 per hour, with the possibility of an increase to $20 per hour after seven years.

A GM spokesperson told The Hill that the wage structure is the same for conventional and EV factories.

Mr. Fain told the union’s members in a May memo that the union hasn’t endorsed President Joe Biden because of this situation, according to The Hill.

A White House spokesperson has previously said that the UAW “is working toward the same goal as the president, which is to ensure the future of the auto industry is made here in America, with good-paying, union jobs.”

Trump on Electric Cars

Former President Donald Trump addressed the issue in a speech at the Oakland County, Michigan, Republican Party dinner on June 25.

“Driven by [Mr. Biden’s] ridiculous regulations, electric cars will kill more than half of U.S. auto jobs and decimate the suppliers that they decimated already,“ he said. ”It’s going to decimate your jobs, and it’s going to decimate, more than anybody else, the state of Michigan.”

In Michigan, Ford is planning to open an EV battery plant in 2026, partnering with Chinese EV battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL). While the factory will be owned by Ford, CATL will provide the battery technology, some equipment, and Chinese workers.

The plant isn’t being welcomed by all locals, who say that CATL has the Chinese Communist Party’s backing and that the project will occupy prime farmland.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the factory is expected to create 2,500 jobs.

The deal will give a significant boost to CATL, which already had $155 million in Chinese subsidies from 2015 until 2017, as Ford will use batteries with materials that only China can provide, thus strengthening the Chinese monopoly.

Mr. Trump said in June that he'll end Democrats’ EV policies on Day One if reelected.

During a June 10 rally in Atlanta, he derided a series of Democrat policies to offer tax handouts and other incentives for relatively novel EVs.

EV Adoption Comes With Concerns

The Biden administration has promoted EVs through the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which sets emissions standards for new vehicles manufactured in the United States, has proposed rules that, if finalized, would require about two-thirds of new vehicles produced after 2030 to be electric.

“We built the greatest economy in the history of the world,“ Mr. Trump said in Atlanta. ”We achieved energy independence, soon to be energy dominance, for the first time in 64 years, and gas prices were at about $1.87 a gallon.”

He also joked, “We actually had them lower than that for a little while, but I had to get them up to appease the oil companies. They were going so low; they were getting killed.

“But now they want to give you all-electric cars. Isn’t that wonderful? So does anybody want to drive for an hour and then wait four hours to get a recharge?”

Republican critics say that EVs require rare earth metals over which the Chinese regime has a near monopoly, thus constituting a national security threat.

Another concern involves the outdated U.S. energy grid, which could be pushed past its limits with mass EV adoption.

Terri Wu and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.