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**MAY 25, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

General Motors Has Second Thoughts

In my On TAP last Thursday
,
I discussed GM's plans for two new electric-battery factories,
currently under construction in Ohio and Tennessee, which will be joint
ventures between the company and the South Korean battery manufacturer
LG Chem. When I wrote, GM had just announced that since the plants would
be joint ventures, the workers could decide whether to go union or not,
despite the fact that GM factories in the United States had long been
covered by national contracts with the United Auto Workers. GM's
announcement left open the possibility that the company could oppose a
unionization campaign with a campaign of its own, much as Amazon did at
its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse. That, to put it mildly, roused the
UAW's ire. And given the Biden administration's expressed desire to
provide funds for the manufacture of electric cars,

**and** to have that work done by well-paid union workers, it seemed
almost a provocation aimed at the administration-whose own federal
procurement policies don't have to patronize non-union manufacturers.

Well, that was then. Today, GM tweeted
out the
following statement:

That's still not a guarantee that the company will remain neutral when
the UAW asks workers to sign union affiliation cards, which, if the
company recognized those cards as numerically sufficient to establish a
union, would secure union wages and benefits for the plants' workers.
But it's certainly a step in the right direction, and the UAW is now
seeking to sit down with the company to ensure that management won't
step on its workers' right to go union.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

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