The United Automobile Workers union announced Wednesday that it was undertaking an ambitious drive to organize plants owned by more than a dozen nonunion automakers, including Tesla and several foreign companies — a goal that has long eluded it.
The move comes weeks after the U.A.W. won new contracts from General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis that included wage increases of 25 percent or more over four and a half years for its 146,000 members employed there.
In addition to Tesla, the targets of the drive are two other electric vehicle start-ups, Lucid and Rivian, and 10 foreign-owned automakers: Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda and Volvo.
The U.S. plants owned by those companies employ nearly 150,000 workers in 13 states, the union said.