GLENDALE, Ky.—The United Auto Workers claimed a hard-fought win in a union election at the BlueOval SK (BOSK) Battery Park. As of now, the vote stands as a significant victory for organized labor in Kentucky’s emerging electric vehicle industry. The final result, however, remains contested due to 41 challenged ballots.
The initial vote count, as reported by the UAW, stood at 526-515 in favor of unionization—a margin of just 11 votes. More than 1,000 workers, over 90%, cast ballots over the two-day election that ended on Wednesday. The vote took place just one week after the massive plant officially started production, but the campaign to organize the union started seven months ago.
In a statement released after the final votes were tallied, the UAW declared: “Tonight, BlueOval SK workers won a majority of votes in an NLRB election to unionize their plant in Glendale, Kentucky, securing a hard-fought victory. This is a major step forward for workers who stood up against intense company opposition and chose to join the UAW.”
Derek Dougherty, a module production worker and UAW Organizing Committee member at BOSK, told People’s World on Thursday morning that the immediate feelings at the plant are “pride and relief,” but also said that workers there “hold no illusions that the struggle is over.”
“The bargaining unit of hourly production and maintenance workers gave our majority decision, and now we will fight to ensure that our democratic decision is honored,” he said.
The union immediately took aim at the 41 “challenged ballots,” which represent votes cast by workers whose eligibility to participate remains unsettled. The UAW characterized the challenges as an anti-union, corporate tactic to “flood the unit and undermine the outcome.”
“We believe they are illegitimate and represent nothing more than an employer tactic to flood the unit and undermine the outcome,” the union said. “The challenged ballots are not part of the group of workers who built their union from the bottom up.”
The workers whose votes are challenged are part of the Safety Emergency Response Team (SERT) at BOSK. According to the UAW, these workers “deserve to have their own union, in an appropriate bargaining unit with a representative of their own choosing.”
The election caps months of tension at the plant. The BOSK project is a $5.8 billion joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and South Korea’s SK On. The organizing campaign focused on worker complaints about safety, job security, healthcare, plus allegations of aggressive anti-union tactics by the company, workers there told People’s World.
A pre-election UAW video highlighted these themes, connecting this organizing drive to the 1930s and ’40s organizing drives at the massive Ford plants in Detroit. In the video, several of the auto workers were narrating, saying that “We want a legally binding contract that guarantees our wages, health care, PTO policies, and health and safety.”
“We’ve seen the power of unity and solidarity, and we’ve seen the company’s harsh repression tactics in action,” Dougherty told People’s World. “We’ve felt the support from the labor movement around the country and from our communities here at home. We stand on the shoulders of every sacrifice the labor movement has made to bring us to this point in history, and we will continue to write that history ourselves.”
According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filings, BOSK hired Oklahoma-based LRI Consulting Services, a pro-corporate firm that specializes in union busting and makes a hefty profit doing so. UAW Region 8 Director Tim Smith said the company ran new hires through anti-union training, which demonstrated the anti-union character of management.
In March, the UAW filed charges with the NLRB that BOSK unlawfully fired workers for supporting the union. Additionally, BOSK threatened plant closings if workers got organized, interrogated workers on “union activities,” damaged union property and materials, and held forced, captive audience meetings to convince workers not to unionize.
In the lead-up to the election, BlueOval SK plastered ads on social media featuring some workers who said they have not come across unsafe working conditions—which multiple union organizers there told People’s World is a “straight up lie.” Other ads from the corporation were blunter in their anti-union messaging, telling workers to “protect your future” and “keep BlueOval SK union-free.” Hundreds of these anti-union ads and videos appeared on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google searches since the start of the year.
A recent Courier Journal investigative report, however, found a series of workplace injuries and hospitalizations, chemical exposure risks, worker concerns about inadequate personal protective equipment and other issues.
According to the Courier’s report, BlueOval SK received at least one citation from state labor investigations related to improper fire extinguisher placement and one safety violation in which a worker was sprayed with a hazardous chemical.
The NLRB must now rule on the eligibility of the challenged ballots before it can certify the final results. With enough challenges to swing the vote, the process could extend for some time.
If certified, this organizing victory would mark a significant expansion of the UAW’s reach into the “non-union” (read: unorganized) auto corridor and represent its first organized battery plant joint venture involving Ford. The union has already secured contracts at GM’s Ultium plants in Ohio and Tennessee and Stellantis’s StarPlus Energy plant in Indiana.
However, something workers everywhere should watch out for is whether or not management at BOSK will try to indefinitely delay bargaining a first contract. Due to the billionaire-backed Trump administration’s anti-worker assaults and the firing of Gwynne Wilcox, the NLRB was without quorum and unable to issue decisions. Last month, Trump appointed two anti-union members to the Board to achieve a quorum. However, Senate confirmation is not expected until September, as the Senate is in recess in August.
For its part, the union is calling out Ford directly for a just outcome to a democratic election. “The UAW is calling on Ford to acknowledge the democratic decision of its workforce,” they said. “They should immediately drop their anti-democratic effort to undermine the outcome of the election.”
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