In September, the United Auto Workers walked off the job and onto picket lines, not only in the Rust Belt, but across the West, from Reno to Rancho Cucamonga. “Who’s got the power?” Reno’s GM workers chanted. “We got the power! What kind of power? Union power!” Ultimately, more than 45,000 workers around the country joined the strike, the first time the union simultaneously challenged the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (owner of Jeep and Chrysler).
For six weeks, autoworkers walked picket lines in red shirts, waving signs that proclaimed: “UAW Stand Up: Record Profits Record Contracts.” The Big Three made a quarter-trillion in profits and CEO pay rose 40% from 2013-2022, but average real wages for auto workers have fallen almost 20% since 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
“My parents were able to afford a home and cars — GM cars,” said Carina Rosales, who grew up in an autoworker family and chairs the UAW local that represents GM workers in Reno. “Now my brothers and sisters out here, they’re working (additional) part-time jobs just to cover their normal bills.”
Along with better wages and benefits, the autoworkers were fighting for their place in the transition to electric vehicles. UAW contract negotiations coincided with the rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act, which will funnel billions of dollars into renewables and electric vehicle manufacturing. IRA tax credits include incentives for companies that pay good wages, but they don’t require union labor. Previous UAW contracts with the Big Three didn’t cover EV manufacturing facilities.
The Big Three made a quarter-trillion in profits and CEO pay rose 40% from 2013-2022, but average real wages for auto workers have fallen almost 20% since 2008.
“The massive EV subsidies that came with the IRA sort of catapulted autoworkers onto the front lines of this transition,” said Sydney Ghazarian, organizer with the Labor Network for Sustainability
Last summer, with the strike looming, Ghazarian talked with environmental groups about their stake in the UAW fight and an energy transition that protects both workers and the environment. As a result, 150 groups from Greenpeace to Sunrise Movement signed a letter to the Big Three CEOs, declaring that “The Climate Movement Stands with UAW!” These groups also joined autoworkers on picket lines.
In recent years, green groups and labor unions have often been at odds over phasing out fossil fuel industries: Environmentalists want a swift transition, while labor unions want jobs for their rank-and-file. J. Mijin Cha, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz who researches labor and climate, called it “ridiculous” to expect workers to quietly accept the loss of their livelihoods. “You’re talking to folks who will actually lose their jobs in a country with no safety net, right?” Cha said.
Business leaders have often framed the growing EV market as another zero-sum game for labor and climate; UAW demands, they said, were blocking the energy transition, which could be conducted more cheaply in non-union plants or overseas. At one battery plant co-owned by GM and LG, some workers earned barely half what union members make. Meanwhile, a 2020 UAW report suggested that EV manufacturing would require fewer workers than gasoline cars. (Research from Carnegie Mellon found the opposite may be true.) “If climate change is a central problem, we should want climate change technologies produced as inexpensively as possible,” said Lawrence Summers, former President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary, in a recent speech.
At the beginning of the strike, automaker executives said they couldn’t bargain over unionizing battery plants. But after weeks of escalating strikes that caught the Big Three off-guard, autoworkers successfully challenged the notion that the energy transition requires cheap labor. In one of the most significant wins for American labor in decades, the UAW forced the Big Three to include EV battery-manufacturing workers under the union’s contract. The union won other significant gains: elimination of wage tiers, reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments, re-opening of a shuttered plant, the right to strike over future plant closures and significant raises, including a 168% increase for the lowest-paid temporary workers at Stellantis. Mike Miller, director of UAW Region 6 in the West, called the raises “life-altering.”
FRESH FROM THESE HISTORIC contract negotiations, the UAW is now looking to secure labor’s place in EV manufacturing beyond the Big Three. “We’re talking with lots of workers who don’t have unions right now all across the economy who are excited by the strike and excited by what it means for workers’ rights and fighting climate change,” Miller said.
In November, UAW announced simultaneous organizing campaigns at 13 non-union automakers, including Tesla. It won’t be easy: Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, is notoriously anti-union. When employees at Tesla’s Fremont, California factory pushed to unionize in 2017-’18, workers claimed the company illegally fired at least one organizer and that Musk threatened to revoke stock options if they unionized. The National Labor Relations Board ruled against Tesla on both matters in 2021; an appeal is pending.
Autoworkers also hope to inspire other labor movements. “It’s not just about UAW,” said Rosales. “It’s really about everyone just trying to earn a living to support themselves and their family.”
In 2023, U.S. workers went on strike in numbers unseen in decades. Workers cited inflation, stagnating wages and pandemic policies that put their lives on the line. Concerns over climate change-induced extreme heat also drove people to the picket line. UPS drivers, part of the Teamsters union, achieved heat-protection wins, including AC in vehicles purchased after 2023 and updates to existing trucks. Meanwhile, the United Farm Workers’ ongoing demand for nationwide heat-protection standards is backed by dozens of environmental groups.
Solar and wind industries may be the next target for labor and climate movements. Matthew Mayers and Nico Ries, executive director and lead organizer of the Green Workers Alliance, a group advocating for good renewable energy jobs, said temp agencies with poor labor standards control many entry-level positions.
Dalia Bonilla, a member of the group, has worked at solar job sites for a variety of these agencies. In 2023, she and her family traveled from Texas to a worksite in Montana, then to another in Colorado. “There’s so many challenges you face out there,” she told High Country News — travel, expensive lodging, racism and more. At the Colorado site, she witnessed — and even experienced — discrimination toward Latino employees. She eventually quit.
“If we have the exact same systems and institutions and we just changed fuel sources, that’s not a just transition,” said Cha, the UC Santa Cruz researcher.
The Green Workers Alliance is creating an app where workers can discuss worksite conditions. The group is also campaigning to strengthen federal labor standards for utility workers.
“It’s not just about UAW. It’s really about everyone just trying to earn a living to support themselves and their family.”
As funds roll out from both the IRA and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, unions are securing jobs agreements for large utility-scale projects. This may be the next area where enviros and labor have to reconcile. Some environmental groups worry about corporate-run energy systems and the impacts on wildlife from new transmission lines. Unions often fight with utilities over working conditions, but large-scale projects offer good-paying union jobs.
“Animosity toward investor-owned utilities kind of complicates things,” said Brian Condit, director of the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council, an alliance of craft unions. “Utilities pay good wages. Those are my jobs.”
These divides are not easily resolved. But the UAW win demonstrates that labor unions and climate groups can find common ground. “People are no longer getting sucked into this ‘jobs-vs.-environment’ false narrative,” said Cha. “Too often we flatten workers into, well, you’re an auto worker, as opposed to you’re a whole person who cares about climate change.”
Brooke Larsen is the Virginia Spencer Davis Fellow for HCN, covering rural communities, agriculture and conservation. She reports from Salt Lake City, Utah. Email her at brooke.larsen@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy. Follow her on Instagram @jbrookelarsen or Twitter @JBrookeLarsen.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Solidarity in the energy transition.
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