The South’s EV Boom Is an Organizing Challenge for Labor
Thanks in part to investments from the Inflation Reduction Act and tariffs on China, the US South is seeing a boom in electric-vehicle manufacturing. The industry’s expansion in the mostly nonunion region presents an urgent organizing challenge for labor.
The exterior of the new Toyota battery-manufacturing facility in Liberty, North Carolina, April 12, 2024. (Logan Cyrus / AFP via Getty Images)
Towering cranes pierce the sky, contrasting with the rural surroundings. It’s an early morning in June, the air already gauzy and thick, and construction is humming at the Toyota Battery mega-site in Liberty, North Carolina.
Trucks and other heavy machines dart in and out of the complex. A line of food trucks is tucked around the corner, alongside a dozen tour buses used to move workers.
Production is slated to begin in 2025. By 2030, when the seven-million-square-foot complex is fully operational, it will have fourteen production lines — ten dedicated to batteries for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electrics, and four for hybrid electric vehicles — operated by 5,100 workers. The total population of Liberty is 2,655.
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