The Auto Industry Is Going Green. Will Workers Go Along for the Ride?

Wandering around the sprawling 6.2 million-sq.-ft. Lordstown Motors assembly plant in Ohio, it’s tempting to imagine a green future that is full of jobs. The company’s signature product is a high-performing electric pickup truck, and around the facility workers are buzzing about, getting ready to bring it into production. In one corner, according to company officials giving TIME a rare tour, the firm will build its cutting-edge motors, which will be located in each wheel. A short golf-cart ride away, engineers explain how the company will assemble the lithium-ion battery packs that will power the trucks instead of diesel fuel. And while an army of robots sit idle, ready to be put to use assembling the vehicle, company officials insist they will soon be hiring rapidly. At full capacity, the company says, the facility will be able to churn out hundreds of thousands of trucks every year, a best-case scenario that would make Lordstown Motors a major player in the American auto industry and revitalize a part of the country that has been left behind by a series of big industrial departures. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But there’s a reason one local official calls this part of Ohio the “land of broken promises.” The Lordstown Motors jobs may be green, but it’s an open question whether they will be good—and how many of them there will be. Unlike the 10,000-plus people who used to make General Motors automobiles at this same b...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Davos Davos 2021 feature Labor Magazine Special Project Sustainability Source Type: news