The COVID-19 outbreak in Michigan is starting to affect car production and a large Ram truck factory has cut production due to the high number of absent workers.
About 10% of employees at the Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) assembly plant in Sterling Heights, north of Detroit, have either tested positive or are in quarantine, a person aware of the situation said. This equates to about 600 employees, the person said, who asked not to be identified because neither the company nor the United Auto Workers union provided details.
The 400,000 square meter (5 million square feet) factory has approximately 7,450 hourly employees, but not all of them are on the assembly line. To close the shortage, the company turned to workers at a truck factory in nearby Warren, Michigan, which was forced to shut down due to a global semiconductor shortage.
But because those workers need to be trained to build the new Ram trucks, the assembly line is moving slower than usual, the person said, saying he didn’t know how much production had been lost.
For weeks, Michigan has recorded the highest weekly average number of coronavirus cases in the country, according to federal government data, at 538 per 100,000 residents.
The UAW union confirmed that the number of cases in Sterling Heights is on the rise. Many of the absent workers have not tested positive but are waiting for tests or have isolated themselves from being in contact with other people who have the virus, the union said.
“While the numbers are changing by shift, we can say there has been a recent increase in cases, as is the case across Michigan,” UAW Vice President for Stellantis Cindy Estrada said in a statement.
He urged workers to be careful to “keep the factories and our UAW members and their families safe.”
Stellantis also did not want to give any figures, but confirmed that he has had employees who have tested positive for the corona virus.
The company said in a statement it has taken steps to keep factory workers safe and is urging them to get vaccinated.
“We remain aggressive in following recommended contact tracking guidelines,” the statement said. “We also continue to strongly encourage our employees to follow the same health and safety precautions when they are away from home.”
The Ram truck, the third most popular vehicle in America, is an important source of income for Stellantis. The company sold 563,000 of these vans and trucks last year.
Stellantis’ rivals Ford and General Motors have said they have not lost production to COVID-19 in recent weeks.
The production slowdown at Sterling Heights was first reported by Bloomberg News on Friday.