Stellantis and Samsung plan to build a second EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana, a town where many current Stellantis workers see such plants as a threat to their current jobs.

In the coming decades, traditional automakers will transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles through the use of EV battery plants. They could pose a threat to existing jobs building engines and transmissions, which are not needed for EVs. More than 5,000 hourly workers work at Stellantis’ four plants in Kokomo alone, building engines and transmissions.

There is a strike by the United Auto Workers union at Stellantis, which builds cars under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands, along with General Motors and Ford, and the future of jobs is at the heart of the dispute.

There is no strike at Stellantis’ assembly complex in Toledo, while the union is on strike at the four Kokomo plants

Each automaker is building an electric vehicle battery plant, and they all use joint ventures with battery manufacturers like Samsung to build and operate them. Rather than employees of the automakers themselves, they will be employees of the joint ventures. The pay at US EV battery plants that have opened so far is a fraction of what UAW members receive when they work for automakers.

Shawn Fain, the UAW president, announced Friday that GM had agreed to a key union demand that its EV battery plant employees be included in the union’s national master labor agreement.

The two companies announced Wednesday that they will invest more than $3.2 billion in the new plant, which will open in early 2027 and have a capacity of 34 gigawatt hours annually. Kokomo, located about an hour north of Indianapolis, will gain about 1,400 new jobs with its opening.