Case Study

Link to the executed CBA.

There have been several promising CBAs for manufacturing of electric buses and railcars, a central focus for community and labor organizers affiliated with Jobs to Move America (JMA). JMA has developed a sophisticated approach to coalition building for CBAs, grounded in research and policy tools like the U.S. Employment Plan (USEP) that incentivizes manufacturers applying for public funding to build strong labor and equity provisions into their bids for purchasing contracts. 

This approach has gained significant traction in Southern California. In 2017, JMA helped to build a community-labor coalition that resulted in a CBA between the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Union (SMART) and electric bus manufacturer BYD for apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs for jobs at BYD’s facility in Lancaster, California. This resulted in an award of around $1 million from the California’s High Road Training Partnership (HRTP). Similarly, in 2020, JMA brokered a CBA between Proterra, an electric bus manufacturer, and United Steelworkers Local 675 that included a pre-hire training program targeting local residents from disadvantaged and historically underrepresented backgrounds near Proterra’s City of Industry facility in LA County. This training partnership also led to a $650,000 grant from the golden state’s HRTP to develop certified apprenticeships. 

In the Midwest, rail manufacturer CRRC struck a similar deal through a CBA, which boosts employment with a pre-apprenticeship and workforce training program for marginalized communities on the south side of Chicago. Even when CBAs have not been established, JMA has pushed transit agencies to commit to good jobs policies by using USEP for procurement. For example, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) applied USEP to procure railcars and buses. In the Northeast, Amtrak also followed this model in their $2 billion purchase of new high-speed trains from Alstom Transport. 

In the Deep South, “right to work” laws may pose barriers for labor organizing, but significant funding and tax incentives have attracted large-scale growth in manufacturing, and JMA and unions like UAW have acted. 

In January 2024, a majority of the workers at New Flyer in Anniston signed a union card to join the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). Because a neutrality agreement was already in place, the workplace unionized rapidly, and a collective bargaining agreement was ratified by 99.39% of the workers on May 16, 2024. This agreement increases wages 38% by 2026 with cost-of-living increases, restrictions on forced overtime, expanded vacation, paid time off, parental leave, and a paid holiday on Juneteenth. Workers at New Flyer’s other plants in Kentucky, New York and Minnesota are also represented by IUE-CWA, making it the largest union in the public transit bus manufacturing sector in the United States.

These CBAs have demonstrated JMA’s capacity to use a blend of community and labor organizing, critical research, and legal expertise to make bus and railcar manufacturing a more just and equitable industry across diverse regions of the United States. This approach is rooted in lessons learned through the urban redevelopment CBA negotiations at the turn of the twenty-first century. There is a consistent focus on building coalitions among community groups and the labor movement with progressive positions on racial and economic justice. Provisions of these CBAs mainly concern good jobs, equitable hiring, training and recruitment, and JMA has found significant leverage in public purchasing agreements. 

However, because these CBAs are in the manufacturing sector, they do not tend to include benefit-sharing of revenue that may be more common in global agreements for mining and energy, or in domestic utility-scale solar development. Unlike manufacturing, value derives primarily from nature in mining and energy generation, bringing different land use changes and environmental impacts. Therefore, similar to CBAs for urban redevelopment, these CBAs for EV, bus, and railcar manufacturing offer important lessons for labor-community coalition building for legally-binding contracts, but additional considerations may be needed to support Indigenous peoples, farmworkers and environmental justice communities in proximity to extractive industries or energy production facilities.

Reference List: 

Jobs to Move America, “The U.S. Employment Plan.”

“BYD Apprenticeship Readiness Training.”

“Our CBA with Electric Bus Builder Proterra.” Unfortunately, Proterra closed this facility and shortly thereafter went bankrupt.

“Our CBA with Railcar Manufacturer CRRC.”

Erickson and Herbert, “Job Quality and Community Well-Being in Mississippi and Alabama’s Manufacturing Facilities.”

Fanger, “The Win for EV Workers in the South You Didn’t Hear About | The Nation.”