Union jobs? Ford’s plan for new EV factories raises question

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ford’s blockbuster announcement this week that it would build four sprawling new factories in Kentucky and Tennessee by 2025 and hire nearly 11,000 workers raised a big unanswered question: Just how good will those jobs be? On Monday, when Ford’s plans were announced, CEO Jim Farley stopped short of publicly supporting the UAW, saying only that union representation at the plants would be decided by the workers themselves. “We respect the UAW’s efforts to organize future hourly workers at the new facilities coming to Tennessee and Kentucky,” Ford and SK said in statements. “So they probably are not speaking out about unionization one way or the other because they don’t want to antagonize their longstanding partners.” Not to mention rankle President Joe Biden, who has frequently promoted an industry-wide transition to electric vehicles as a vital way to counter climate change and create “good-paying union jobs.” A letter attached to Ford’s national contract with the UAW pledges that the company will remain neutral when the union tries to organize any new factories. But both stressed the state’s right-to-work law, with Hagerty saying he hopes future workers who will decide whether to unionize “will be mindful of the pro-business, pro-competition and pro-worker policies of Tennessee.” The Ford plants could raise the standard of living in Haywood County and those surrounding it.