LORDSTOWN — General Motors appears supportive of the effort by United Auto Workers to organize workers at two electric-vehicle battery-cell manufacturing plants in the U.S., including the one in Lordstown.

However, the automaker Tuesday stopped short of allowing a simplified organizing method, card check, over the more complicated vote-by-ballot process. Card check requires employees to only sign a card to be included in a bargaining unit.

The factory under construction in Lordstown, Ultium Cells, and the second planned for Nashville, Tenn., are 50 / 50 joint venture partnerships with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution. Because they are separate legal entities, workers there will not automatically be part of existing UAW contracts with the automaker.

Tim O’Hara, former president of UAW Local 1112, which represented workers at GM’s former assembly plant in Lordstown, said he isn’t hopeful the more than 1,000 employees who transferred to other GM plants before and after the automaker closed the factory in March 2019 can return home. One of the reasons, he said, is the substantially less pay.

The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this month that a person familiar with hiring, who asked to remain anonymous because authorization was not given to provide the information to the media, said the starting wage at the plants will likely be $15 to $17 per hour.

The average worker at the former assembly complex was making nearly $30 per hour when it closed, the paper reported.

“I’m sure that will be a question a lot of people have, will people be able to transfer back that left the (Mahoning) Valley?” O’Hara said. “My expectation is that won’t happen and they will end up hiring an entire new workforce.”

O’Hara said he hopes the local remains 1112, “but that is something down the road that we’ll (have) to wait and see how it plays out.”

The plants when fully operational will employ more than 2,300 people.

“As we deliver on our plans to create an all-electric future, GM will build on a long history of supporting unions to promote safety, quality, training, and well-paying jobs for American workers,” GM spokesman Dan Flores said.

“We believe the UAW, given their historic and constructive relationship in the automotive industry, would be well positioned to represent the workforce,” Flores said.

Said UAW Vice President Terry Dittes, director of the GM department, “we in the UAW look forward to starting discussions with General Motors regarding their joint venture to produce batteries in Ohio and Tennessee so workers will have a voice at the table in order to create good paying union jobs and benefits.”