This report was updated on July 1 with details about the recent decision from the National Labor Relations Board.
Summary
- A supermajority of workers at an electric vehicle battery plant in Kentucky launched a unionization drive and filed for a union election in January. Plant owner BlueOval SK urged the National Labor Relations Board to dismiss or delay the election, saying a vote is “premature.” Nearly half a year later, the board rejected these arguments and issued an order for an election. However, the election is now “blocked,” though details are not yet publicly available.
- In the months the election was delayed, BlueOval SK has been running a campaign to deter workers from unionizing. Management hired consultants and “union-avoidance” lawyers, is running anti-union ads, and faces multiple allegations of unfair labor practices, including dismissing workers for union sympathies.
- Unionization could supercharge the facility’s economic impact. But BlueOval SK is taking the short-sighted approach of fighting the union, while distracting the public by pushing a narrative that a union election should be delayed to protect the labor rights of future BlueOval SK workers.
In July 2023, BlueOval SK (BOSK) announced it would officially begin hiring workers for the battery plant it was constructing in Glendale, Kentucky. The project is the “single-largest economic development investment in state history,” according to the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. By April 2024, hundreds of workers were hired. About seven months later, in November 2024, the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced that a supermajority of the hourly employees at BOSK signed union authorization cards.
While BOSK’s CEO said earlier this year that a union election would be “premature” because not-yet-hired workers “deserve to participate in any vote over whether to give up their voice to the UAW,” the company’s actions, as well as public statements, suggest that they fundamentally oppose unionization and may have been putting forward the argument about protecting the rights of future workers in order to distract the public from anti-union efforts and to continue delaying the vote.
BOSK could have made a commitment to neutrality and let hourly workers decide, without employer influence, if it is in their best interest to join the UAW, as Ultium Cells and StarPlus Energy did and Ford, joint owner of BOSK, has committed to do at other EV battery plants. Instead, BOSK management hired a law firm that provides “union avoidance” services and has engaged in a spate of anti-union activities.
BOSK management raised wages in the weeks following the announcement of the unionization drive. According to one media outlet, the company is allegedly holding “captive audience meetings,” which are mandatory meetings in which the employer expresses its views on unionization and are deemed unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act. In charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the UAW alleges that BOSK unlawfully fired workers for union activities or sympathies (the NLRB has not yet made a determination on these charges). BOSK also asked the NLRB to dismiss or delay the union election because it should not “be decided by a fraction of BOSK’s total anticipated workforce,” among other factors.
NLRB Region 9 issued a decision directing an election in late June, though the details are not yet publicly available. If workers vote to join the UAW, management at BOSK might be able to indefinitely delay bargaining a first contract, given that the NLRB currently lacks a quorum after President Donald Trump’s unprecedented firing of an NLRB board member.
As I detailed in my op-ed for the Louisville Courier Journal, BOSK’s EV battery plant is a huge development for Kentucky’s economy. Unionization could supercharge the benefits of this economic engine, which is why the company’s resistance to unionization, despite clear efforts by workers to unionize, is shortsighted. Below is a more detailed look at the ways BOSK has responded to unionization efforts at the plant.
ORVI asked BlueOval SK about allegations against the company, lawyers hired, a timeline for the union election, and other claims covered in the report below. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Rather than commit to a card-check process or neutrality during a union election, BOSK management actively opposes unionization
When a supermajority of BOSK workers announced their intent to join the UAW, BOSK management had options:
1. Allow a “card-check” process, whereby a third party would verify (free of charge) whether or not a majority of BOSK workers had indeed signed union cards. If a majority was verified, then management could have voluntarily recognized the union. Examples of this include:
- BlueOval SK’s joint owner Ford committed to the card-check process at the BlueOval Battery Park currently under construction in Marshall, Michigan.
- Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution, took a neutral position last year when workers were considering joining the UAW at their EV battery plant in Tennessee. Ultium Cells voluntarily recognized the UAW at the plant in September 2024.
- StarPlus Energy, a joint venture between Stellantis N.V. and Samsung SDI, remained neutral as workers organized a union at its EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana. StarPlus Energy voluntarily recognized the UAW in May 2025 once a majority of workers signed cards.
2. Commit to being neutral during a union election process, whereby management would not interfere or influence workers regarding the question to join a union. For example, Volkswagen made a neutrality commitment during the union election at the plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2024.
3. Take an anti-union position, wherein management would seek to dissuade BOSK workers from unionizing and/or to delay a union election.
The management at BOSK has decided to oppose unionization. Union opposition is not uncommon among American companies, but it is worth noting the deliberate choice made on the part of management to fight the unionization effort. Ford, Volkswagen, StarPlus Energy, and Ultium Cells are examples of firms in the auto sector that have taken the opposite approach. They have made neutrality commitments or agreed to the card-check process at recent or upcoming union organizing drives at their plants.
When employers oppose a union, it is common for them to argue that it is in pursuit of a “direct relationship” with their employees. In January 2025, a spokesperson for BOSK said they “look forward to maintaining our direct relationship” with the workforce. In February, the CEO of BOSK wrote that workers “made their choice to join us without the UAW, and we continue to believe this is the right choice.”
These statements contrast sharply with what BOSK joint owner Ford said when the BlueOval SK battery plants were first announced. In 2021 Reuters reported that “[Ford’s North American chief operating officer] was quick to add, however, that Ford is the largest employer of UAW-represented employees in the United States and that it has asked SK not to take an anti-union stance when it comes to the joint-venture battery plants to be built in Tennessee and Kentucky.” Similarly, WDRB reported in 2022 that Ford “told WDRB News in September that the company is ‘neutral’ as to whether battery plants like BlueOval SK unionize.” In 2021 AP News reported, “‘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.”
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear expressed his desire that BOSK remain neutral. He told WKU Public Radio last November: “I am a pro-union governor and always will be. My hope is the companies that are involved will stay neutral and let this be a true decision of the employees.”
BOSK management retains consultants as well as a law firm that provides “union avoidance” services
Actions by BOSK management demonstrate their anti-union position further. The law firm representing BOSK management is Frost Brown Todd, which on its website advertises “union avoidance” services that can help clients “implement policies and practices that make it easier to fight a union campaign,” among other things. The firm also offers to help clients “dampen your employees’ drive to unionize.”
The Washington Post reported in January 2025 that the UAW was concerned about BOSK bringing in consultants who were dissuading workers from joining a union. A spokesperson for BOSK management told the Post they were offering workers “the opportunity to talk with subject matter experts who have firsthand knowledge about how unions work.”
There is evidence that at least one consultant was brought in to prevent the UAW from organizing workers: According to LM-20 forms filed with the U.S. Department of Labor earlier this year, a consultant entered into a “Written agreement to represent BlueOval SK at their facility in Louisville, KY to educate production and maintenance employees regarding exercising their rights to organize and bargain collectively” for an hourly rate of $425. The form lists multiple sub-consultants, including one sub-consultant whose separate LM-20 form states they entered into a “Verbal agreement to represent BlueOval at their facility to prevent the UAW from organizing their employees for purposes of collective bargaining.”
According to an LM-10 form for 2024 filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, another one of the sub-consultants was previously paid $482,873 by Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc. pursuant to an arrangement made on April 26, 2024 “in response to union organizing efforts to assist in educating team members about labor organizations, answering labor-related questions from team members, the issues, the election process, and their rights under applicable law.” An NLRB union election was held at the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc. plant in Vance, Alabama on May 13-17, 2024, during which workers voted not to join the UAW.
Anti-union tactics have been common among many of the high-profile union organizing drives in recent years, at companies including Amazon and Starbucks. The “union avoidance” industry in the US has surged since the 1970s and, according to one estimate, companies spend upwards of $400 million annually on “union avoidance” services. This figure is likely an underestimate, as companies are able to shield how much they spend on some “union avoidance” services from public view.
BOSK management raises wages in the weeks following the announcement of the unionization drive
After the UAW announced in November that a supermajority of workers had signed union cards, BOSK management announced in December 2024 that it was raising wages.
It is not uncommon for employers to use wage hikes amid a union organizing drive in an effort to deflate workers’ desire for union representation. For example, in 2022, amid a nationwide union push at Starbucks stores, the company raised pay for workers—except for those workers at Starbucks locations that had voted to unionize. After the UAW signed a new master contract in 2023 that included wage increases with Ford, GM, and Stellantis, the non-union Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky and the then-non-union Volkswagen plant in Tennessee both raised wages. According to a guide on the NLRB website, in general “Granting wage increases deliberately timed to discourage employees from forming or joining a union” is considered a violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
According to the Courier Journal, “BlueOval SK representatives did not address questions from the Courier Journal asking if the wage raises were related to the union campaign or worker safety complaints,” but BlueOval SK did say “the increases for hourly team members come after a careful and lengthy review of comparable compensation and benefits data provided from multiple sources.”
BOSK management launches anti-union online media campaign
Frost Brown Todd says it develops “union-education campaigns that empower employees to vote ‘NO’” by, among other things, “…training your management personnel in the proper use of campaign materials so they are effective and confident acting as the company’s representatives…”
Since the beginning of 2025, BOSK has posted dozens of paid anti-union ads and videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google searches—most of which direct viewers to a website, myblueovalsk.com, which focuses on the unionization campaign and includes anti-union content. On Facebook and Instagram BlueOval SK has posted 362 different ads (i.e. sponsored videos, memes, or posts), as of June 10, 2025. The first ad was posted on January 10, 2025, three days after the UAW filed a petition for an election with the NLRB. All 362 ads are related to the union election, either by including content in the post itself and/or by directly linking to myblueovalsk.com. According to Meta’s Ad library, BlueOval SK has spent over $40,000 promoting these ads. Google’s ad database (which includes ads on YouTube, Google Search, and other Google platforms) shows that “BlueOval SK” has posted 11 ads related to the union election since December 28, 2024, though it is not clear from the database how much these ads cost.
The 362 ads on Meta platforms and the content on the website, myblueovalsk.com, contain a variety of messages. Some of the messages underline positive aspects of BOSK, including an opportunity for growth and advancement into higher positions, the company’s safety priorities, the importance of having a voice at BOSK, and how the workplace is like a family.
Other messages attempt to discredit the UAW specifically or unions in general. For example, the website says: “Where does your money go? Not to you. The financial reports for the UAW confirm that the union spends no money ($0.00) ‘on behalf of individual members.’ … The UAW needs you and your dues for revenue.” A BlueOval SK video includes a similar message, wherein an unnamed person in the video says, “I feel like they’re here just to take your all’s money” and another says, “My opinion of the misconceptions are that the union cares about you. It comes down to the money guys, we all know that, it’s about them getting paid.” However, as the last UAW master contract with the Big Three demonstrates, the UAW has secured significant benefits for its members, including wage increases of at least 25% over the next 4.5 years. The UAW’s activities, including contract negotiations with employers on behalf of its members, are financed by union dues.
In addition to this digital campaign, BOSK has provided new hires with offer letters that include materials about “why you shouldn’t join a union,” according to a worker interviewed by LEO Weekly in Louisville.
In May, an activist group of Ford investors sent a letter to the Ford Board of Directors expressing their “concerns over reports of violations of freedom of association and collective bargaining for workers employed at three electric-vehicle battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee…” The letter references “anti-union flyers and media” that the investors report have been disseminated by BlueOval SK, and urges Ford to take steps to remedy these “serious concerns” at BlueOval SK, which is a joint venture of Ford.
BOSK management allegedly engages in “captive audience meetings”
The magazine Jacobin reported in March that: “BlueOval SK appears to have begun its anti-union push, the organizers report; employees have been ushered into meetings with outside consultants…Traditionally known as “captive audience meetings,” such gatherings were declared to be unfair labor practices by Biden’s National Labor Relations Board…”
In a captive audience meeting, the employer requires employees under threat of discipline or discharge to attend meetings in which the employer expresses its views on unionization. Captive audience meetings were deemed unlawful by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 2024 because they “interfere with and coerce employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights” of the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRB cited three main reasons:
- Captive audience meetings interfere with an employee’s right to decide how/if to participate in a debate over union representation
- Enable employers to surveil employees’ regarding unionization
- Inhibit employees from freely exercising their rights because such meetings are required “on pain of discipline or discharge.”
However, the NLRB decision does provide employers the chance to hold meetings “so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept.”
Workers at BOSK file charges alleging that management unlawfully fired workers for union activity
Multiple allegations of unfair labor practices have been officially filed against BlueOval SK. The allegations are summarized in Figure 1 below.
Chief among them, the UAW filed two charges alleging that BOSK unlawfully discharged workers (or refused to hire workers) because of union activity or sympathies. Unfair labor practices are common in union elections. The specific charge related to the unlawful firing of a worker that is being brought against BOSK management—“8(a)(3) Discharge (Including Layoff and Refusal to Hire (not salting))”—is a charge that is brought against employers in 19.9% of union elections, according to an analysis of NLRB elections in 2016 and 2017. Figure 1 shows how common each of the charges that have been filed against BOSK are among NLRB union elections.
In May 2025, the Courier Journal reported that management at BOSK “terminated [Amanda Johnson, a production supervisor]’s at-will employment” and that Johnson “believes her firing was retaliation for speaking up about safety concerns, including workplace injuries and hospitalizations, and questioning management’s anti-union strategy in the new battery factory.” Johnson is seeking legal retribution through the NLRB and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Michael Adams, CEO of BlueOval SK, told WDRB in June 2025 that “…we have three labor relationship board complaints. We’ve had zero violations.”
All of the unfair labor practice charges are still “open” and awaiting a decision from the NLRB, according to the NLRB website.
In poring over state records of worker complaints and interviewing workers, the Courier Journal found: “Contractors and BlueOval SK workers said they feared termination for speaking up or filing complaints to state labor officials. One complainant ‘stated he would like to be kept anonymous to the company, because they terminate anyone who reports any issues,’ state records show. ‘If you want to stay employed, you do what you’re told,’ Chad Johnson, who works in the plant’s quality module lab, told The Courier Journal.”
More than half (54.4%) of employers are charged with allegations of violating federal labor law in elections involving more than 60 workers, according to the analysis of elections in 2016 and 2017. (The BOSK union election would involve hundreds of workers.) It is common for companies to fire workers for supporting a union or for companies to break the law during union elections because there are few consequences for doing so. “While employers and corporate officials face significant civil monetary penalties for breaking the law related to consumer finance, lobbying, and insider trading regulations, violations of fundamental labor and worker protection laws involve only minimal civil monetary penalties or even no monetary penalty at all,” according to the Economic Policy Institute. Another analysis found that a profit-maximizing company has “a compelling financial incentive to dismiss a worker for union activities,” given that there are no financial penalties for doing so (except for paying the worker back wages). The conservative think tank American Compass has characterized the laws as “incredibly lax penalties for union-busting.”
The NLRB rejected BOSK’s arguments that the union election should be dismissed or delayed
On January 7, 2025, the UAW filed a petition before the NLRB for a union election at BOSK. A hearing was held on January 28, which was 21 days after the petition filing. According to court filings obtained by ORVI through a public records request, BOSK argued that the election petition at BOSK “should be dismissed” or “the election be postponed until on or after May 1, 2025, when hiring plateaus as the plant gears up to begin normal operations.” Among other things, BOSK management argued that “The Union has petitioned for an election to be decided by a fraction of BOSK’s total anticipated workforce, despite the fact that its outcome will fundamentally affect each and every one of the hundreds of soon-to-be employees who have not yet been hired.”
It is not unusual for a workplace to have a union election before the “total anticipated workforce” is hired. For example, EV battery manufacturer Ultium Cells hired about 1,000 workers at their Ohio facility after a union election was held there among 779 eligible workers in 2022.
When asked about BOSK’s public statement that a union election would be premature, Dr. Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell University and a labor relations expert, told ORVI via email:
“Our legal and labor relations system provides that once a bargaining unit (and unionization) gets established through a representation election or card check, it can grow as employment of similar jobs expands at that workplace and those ‘new’ workers are automatically in the bargaining unit and have union representation. The new workers don’t get to choose whether or not they want to be in the already established bargaining unit. So, it is not unusual for workers to vote in a representation election at one point in time and then other workers get hired into that unit at a later date and automatically are in the bargaining unit and have union representation.”
The NLRB can delay or dismiss an election if the current workforce is not “substantial and representative” of the eventual workforce. Whether or not BOSK workers are a “substantial and representative” group was the primary question reviewed by the NLRB Region 9 Director Eric Taylor. In a decision issued in late June, he concluded that the “employee complement, at the time the instant petition was filed, is sufficiently substantial and representative to warrant holding an immediate election.”
If the current workforce contains 30% of the eventual workforce and 50% of the anticipated job classifications, then it is generally considered substantial and representative, according to the decision. Though, there is no hard and fast rule; instead, a test comprising multiple factors is used. The Regional Director found that all nine of the factors, as applied to this case, suggested that a substantial and representative complement was present.
According to BOSK’s court filing, 865 hourly workers were employed as of January 28 and 1,402 hourly workers were expected as of May 2025. BOSK also provided estimates of expected employment after May, but the Regional Director concluded that expected employment beyond May was “not definite because customer demand and orders are not finalized.” The Regional Director thus found that the current workforce was 61% of the eventual workforce of 1,402 workers, and that “the Employer employed individuals in 100 percent of its job classifications that will exist once production commences.” The Regional Director acknowledged that some workers are still in training, though he noted that they are still performing some of the duties in their job descriptions (such as testing operations and performing quality checks), are working regular hours plus overtime, and that training will decrease substantially between January and May.
The decision ordered an “immediate election” to be held among the BOSK workers employed during the payroll period ending June 21, 2025.
An election has been ordered, but changes at the Trump NLRB hang over the election
In the time that has transpired since the UAW filed its union petition before NLRB Region 9, 19 petitions were filed and already held union elections, according to ORVI analysis of NLRB Region 9 data (as of June 23, 2025, based on the NLRB website). A common thread among these cases was a stipulated election agreement. If an employer does not agree to a stipulated (or consent) election agreement and/or uses the pre-election hearing to oppose the election or object to the proposed bargaining unit, then the election can be delayed significantly; a decision following a pre-election hearing can take months. It is thus a common legal tactic used to delay a union election. One 2011 analysis of NLRB cases found that “employers can delay a vote once workers file a petition by objecting to the proposed bargaining unit and forcing a pre-election hearing. In cases where a hearing is held, the election occurs an average of 124 days after the petition is filed.”
BOSK has foregone a stipulated election agreement, according to the public docket on the NLRB website, and explicitly requested the NLRB dismiss or delay the election in a February court filing obtained by ORVI through a public records request. Though the decision issued by the NLRB in late June rejected BOSK’s arguments on the merits, it took nearly five months after the January 28 pre-election hearing for the NLRB to issue that decision, in effect delaying the election for months.
As of July 1, the status of the union petition has been updated to “Open-Blocked” on the NLRB website, suggesting that the election may be blocked until related legal disputes are resolved. Details on the block were not yet available.
Another thing to consider is that if “captive audience meetings” are being held at BOSK, the UAW could potentially file an unfair labor practice for those meetings. However, the new Acting General Counsel of the NLRB, who was appointed by Trump, has signaled a new policy direction related to captive audience meetings, according to one legal expert. This and/or other legal developments could lead to a reversal of the decision that deemed captive audience meetings unlawful.
If BOSK workers vote to join the UAW, then the process of bargaining a first contract would ensue. At that point, however, recent actions that Trump has made at the NLRB could make a major impact. If management at BOSK were to drag their feet in bargaining a contract, then the UAW could file charges with the NLRB. But the NLRB is currently unable to issue decisions because it lacks a quorum due to Trump’s unprecedented firing of NLRB Board Member Gwynne Wilcox. In practice, any legal efforts to force management to bargain could thus potentially languish before the NLRB indefinitely.