Billboards of UAW concerns appearing in Warren
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Ultium Cells began production in Lordstown in August of this year. By mid-September, the workers at Ultium Cells battery plant in Lordstown voted to strike for recognition from General Motors and union authorization cards were signed by 85 percent of Ultium Cells employees.
But if you drive through Trumbull county, you may see billboards like the one on N. Salem-Warren Road (State Route 45), and another one on state Route 45 near Tod Lane and Lane West Road in Warren, that read: "FACT: UAW is under federal oversight after a corruption scandal" and "FACT: A federal investigation put several UAW leaders behind bars."
The billboards are paid for by a group called Center for Union Facts, and the communications director for the Center for Union Facts Charlyce Bozzello said, "Autoworkers and the public deserve to know the truth about the UAW's track record."
According to the group, the two billboards are part of a campaign to educate workers and the general public on the United Auto Workers' track record.
UAW 1112 President Darwin Cooper that while he has not seen the billboards, he said that the Ultium workers spoke when voted to strike for recognition.
And while the vote to unionize hasn't taken place, Cooper says that the International Union has asked the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to take place in December, but no date has yet been set.
Earlier in November, GM spokesman Dan Flores, in an emailed response to The Detroit Bureau, an online source that covers automobile news, “Ultium Cells respects workers’ freedom to choose union representation and the efforts of the UAW to organize battery cell manufacturing workers at our Ohio manufacturing site.”
“Ultium Cells will comply with the National Labor Relations Act, which protects our employees’ right to freely decide unionization through a voluntary election conducted by the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board). Ultium Cells believes the right to a personal and private vote is important.”
According to the Center for Union Facts, a similar mobile billboard was placed outside of the UAW's Constitutional Convention in Detroit, Michigan this summer.
The Center for Union Facts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that according to its website "fights for transparency and accountability in America’s labor movement."