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Ford's battery flagship socked by mold sickness, workers say

The smell of mold hit James “Lucky” Dugan the moment he walked into the plant. Last fall, Dugan was one of thousands of union construction workers to arrive in small-town Glendale, Kentucky, to build a vast factory for Ford and SK On, a South Korean company. The plant, when completed, will make batteries for nearly a million electric pickup trucks each year. When Dugan walked in, huge wooden boxes containing battery-making machines, largely shipped from overseas, were laid across the mile-long factory floor.

The BlueOval SK Battery Park, billed to open in 2025, is a banner project for President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a program of public subsidies and financing to companies moving away from fossil fuels. “I was seeing fireflies, coughing up chunks like white leather all night, crawling across the floor.” A nearby clinic diagnosed Shaffer with a bacterial infection of the lungs, but he has yet to get a diagnosis and care for his mold exposure. They say they’re going to bring in a third party contractor to open the boxes outside.” A notice from Abel dated February 3 says that the company will start providing workers with suits, goggles, dust masks, and gloves, as well as spraying the wooden crates with a bleach solution.

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