WINDSOR — FCA Canada has taken more physical steps toward restarting production in Windsor, Canada, erecting medical tents in the parking lots of its plants and posting large COVID-19 posters on all its gates.
Four tents, anchored over about 12 parking stalls in the employee lots at the automaker’s minivan plant, went up over the weekend. Company spokeswoman LouAnn Gosselin says similar installations are in place in Brampton, Ont., where FCA builds its sedans.
Employees arriving for work are expected to be screened for a fever before entering the factories to ensure “the daily wellness of our workforce,” the company said.
Each gate now has two COVID-19 placards hung on the fence adjacent to the turnstiles employees funnel through.
The first is a five-question checklist employees must answer before entering the plants. If they answer “no” to any of the five questions, they should not report for work. The second lists eight measures the company has taken to keep its workers safe and “reassure our employees of their health and well-being in their workplace.”
“As a global FCA family, we are sharing best practices that have enabled the restart of operations at our plants in China … with the support of the unions, at our Italian plants,” Gosselin said in a statement to Automotive News Canada. “These robust protocols aligned with CDC [Centers for Disease Control] and WHO [World Health Organization] recommendations.”
FCA Canada has also redesigned work stations to maintain proper physical distancing, expanded its “already extensive cleaning protocols” at all locations and made the wearing of masks mandatory.
“It is important that our employees feel confident that all precautions have been taken to ensure our facilities are safe, secure and sanitized when production resumes,” Gosselin said.
FCA had hoped to resume North American production sometime in May.
“In light of the updated state stay-in-place orders, the company is re-evaluating its plans to resume its North American operations and will communicate new restart dates in due course,” Gosselin said.
Members of Unifor, the union which represents about 9,500 hourly FCA employees at the two plants, have been working on safety protocols with the company.
“We’ve taken the position with the Detroit 3 that if our members aren’t comfortable going back to work, then there’s no way we’re going to allow any company to force people back to work,” Unifor President Jerry Dias said last week. “We’re not giving any green light at all unless our local health and safety people and our committees are 100 percent convinced that everything is OK.”
Dias said he remained “cautiously optimistic” about returning to work in May but warned such targets might not be hit if his members remain nervous about returning to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s no question we’re cautiously optimistic, but the bottom line is people are afraid,” Dias said.
Ultimately, he’s leaving it up to local chapters to determine the safety of their workplaces.
Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy, who represents about 5,000 workers at the Windsor plant, said on Monday that the union will make a walkthrough of the plant on May 8 and “will have more information after that.”