The United Automobile Workers union is seeking approval from federal labor regulators for a union election among workers at a Ford Motor battery plant in Kentucky, providing an important test of organized labor’s strength after the election of Donald J. Trump.
The union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday to let workers at the new factory in Glendale, about 55 miles south of Louisville, vote on whether they want to join the U.A.W. The plant, which is expected to begin production this year, is a joint venture between Ford and SK On, a South Korean battery company.
In a statement, the U.A.W. said a “supermajority” of workers at the plant had signed cards expressing their desire to join the union.
“We want to be able to come together with management and have a voice in how the business is run,” said Bill Wilmoth, a production worker at the Glendale plant who helped lead the organizing drive. “We want an opportunity to negotiate a contract.”
A vote to join the U.A.W. would increase the likelihood that workers who were hired at two other Ford battery plants would also become union members. Those plants — one in Kentucky and the other in Tennessee — are under construction and are also joint ventures between Ford and SK.
BlueOval SK, as the venture is known, said the U.A.W. election petition was “premature” because the factory had not finished hiring workers.