In the United States, the automotive sector resumes activity under high security

Text by: RFI Follow

In the United States, the three major automobile groups reopen a large part of their factories closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Very strict safety protocols have been put in place to protect workers, especially in Detroit.

Publicity

With our correspondent in New York, Loubna Anaki

In front of the main General Motors factory in Detroit, they stood in line at dawn, masked and standing a meter apart. To access the factory, these workers each pass through a tent for taking a temperature and a quick questionnaire.

Since Monday, the scene is the same in front of General Motors, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler factories in several cities, after eight weeks of production stopped. Each automotive group has implemented its own safety protocol to avoid Covid-19 contamination.

On the assembly lines, plexiglass barriers and curtains have been installed to ensure maximum safety distances. At Ford, employees wear detectors that ring as soon as they get too close to each other.

These exceptional measures were first tested on a limited number of factories in the past two weeks. Today, around fifty factories are partially taking over. For the moment, only the morning teams are working. This represents a little over a thousand workers present each time.

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• United States
• Automobile