A look inside some Fiat Chrysler facilities showing how the people working in them are being protected from COVID-19.
In mid-March automotive plants throughout North America stopped production operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. No matter how automated a factory is, the simple fact of the matter is that every auto plant has hundreds of people who are working in comparatively close proximity, something that wasn’t even thought of as an issue as recently as early March.
In order to bring the factories back up and running it wasn’t simply a case of flipping a switch and turning things back on. Extensive modifications were made.
As Mike Manley, CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) said prior to the reopening of the company’s North American facilities, “We have worked closely with the unions to establish protocols that will ensure our employees feel safe at work and that every step possible has been taken to protect them.”
As FCA has operations in places like China and Italy, it was able to draw on the best practices there for the North American plants. It also coordinated protocols with those of the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Prior to bringing people back into the factories it sent some 47,000 information packages out to represented workers in the U.S. and Canada and provided it in person to its employees in Mexico.
