Automakers are ramping up production, unnerving factory workers
DETROIT: American auto demand is coming back faster than expected and quickly clearing trucks from dealer lots, spurring Ford Motor Co to crank up production of its highly profitable F-150 pickup in Michigan this week.
The ramp up has some workers on edge, despite the extra money they stand to earn from the overtime and extra Saturday shifts Ford is adding at its Dearborn, Michigan, truck factory. The local union has already filed a grievance calling for the company to do more to protect workers from Covid-19.
“People will be working in close proximity for more hours per week,” said Gary Walkowicz, a recently retired United Auto Workers official who helped lead the grievance at Ford’s truck plant last month.
“You saw what happened in the meatpacking plants where people are crowded together. You’ve had large outbreaks and people are dying.”
The situation in Dearborn is a microcosm of an industry entering the next phase of its reopening – where factories that restarted production four weeks ago are speeding up assembly lines again. So far, the carefully laid plans Ford and its peers crafted are working. Isolated cases have led to plants briefly idling for deep cleaning, but the companies have avoided major outbreaks.
What workers fear is that the holes in the companies’ safety nets will be exposed as production volumes pick back up. By quickly restoring shifts at pickup and SUV plants, Ford and General Motors Co are putting at risk the hard-fought labour peace they reached after a roughly two-month shutdown.
“Demand for production is very enticing, but it has to be done in a way that you’re not doing it on the backs of the workers,” said Celeste Monforton, a public health lecturer at Texas State University who has studied the outbreaks at meat and poultry plants.
The UAW local in Dearborn is demanding that production be halted until every worker is tested. Another F-150 factory in Missouri last week accused the company of “backsliding” on safety protocols. The union’s senior leaders haven’t directly weighed in on those complaints but are pushing automakers to increase testing and adjust as they learn more about the risks of the virus.
“A widespread outbreak hasn’t happened yet, but these next couple of weeks are really the test,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice-president of industry, labor and economics for the Centre for Automotive Research.
Ford says everything is going to plan. It isn’t aware of any worker contracting the disease inside its plants, and no quarantined employee has ended up testing positive.