LG Energy Solution's Canadian venture with Stellantis sparks controversy over jobs
An electric vehicle battery plant of NextStar Energy, the Canadian joint venture between LG Energy Solution and Stellantis, is under construction in Windsor, Ontario, in this July file photo. Courtesy of NextStar Energy
NextStar Energy, the Canadian joint venture between LG Energy Solution (LGES) and Stellantis, has been embroiled recently in another political controversy over whom the company hires, according to industry officials, Thursday.
This came just a few months after a dispute was settled over a subsidy payment to the joint venture’s electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, a city in the Canadian province of Ontario.
The latest conflict erupted as the Windsor Police Service posted a message on social media last Friday, regarding the police chief’s meeting with South Korean Ambassador to Canada Lim Woong-soon.
“With the new LGES battery plant being built, we expect approximately 1,600 South Koreans traveling to work and live in our community in 2024,” the message read. “We are grateful for this opportunity to discuss safety and security … and look forward to the South Korean workforce coming to our community.”
Ontario’s provincial ministers and politicians expressed concerns about the possibility of Canadian jobs going to Koreans.
After NextStar hired 11 Korean workers permitted to work in Canada, Ontario’s Labor Minister David Piccini and Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli leveled criticism at the federal government, calling for Ottawa to disclose the number of foreign workers in Ontario who are currently working on the battery plant’s construction site and how many will be arriving under federal programs.
In response, Canada’s federal government explained that a small number of foreign laborers will be hired as temporary workers.
“So you'll have a few people, very few people, selected people, who need to come to transfer technology because this is a new industry,” Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said.
The head of Windsor’s regional chamber of commerce also said that stakeholders always knew that non-Canadian workers would be needed to build the gigantic factory. In addition, the Canadian trade union representing auto workers said this issue is nothing more than “political hay.”
LGES, which holds a 51 percent stake in NextStar, declined to comment on this issue.
Instead, NextStar CEO Danies Lee, an executive of LGES, said in a statement: “The equipment installation phase of the project requires additional temporary specialized global supplier staff who have proprietary knowledge and specialized expertise that is critical to the successful construction and launch of Canada’s first large-scale battery manufacturing facility.”
The company also said it was “fully committed” to hiring more than 2,500 Canadians and 2,300 local tradespeople for the construction and equipment installation.
However, it remains uncertain about how many Korean and other non-Canadian workers will be deployed to the Windsor plant.
When the governments of Canada and Ontario clashed earlier this year to avoid the burden of subsidy, the plant’s construction was suspended temporarily.
Following the summit between President Yoon Suk Yeol and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in May and an LGES executive’s meeting with the Canadian industry minister, the federal and provincial governments agreed in July to provide NextStar with a subsidy worth $15 billion Canadian dollars ($11 billion).
NextStar resumed the factory construction after the agreement, but potential conflicts between the federal and the provincial governments are still seen as risks to its operation.