WARREN - The Detroit Three automakers and their suppliers began restarting assembly lines on Monday after a two-month coronavirus lockdown in a slow revival of a sector that employs nearly 1 million people in the United States.
The reopening of car plants will be a closely watched test of whether workers across a range of US industries can return to factories in large numbers without a resurgence of infections. Workers entering factories on Monday were checked by temperature monitors. Face masks or shields are standard protective equipment. Jobs such as installing seat belts that used to require two or more workers to get close together inside a vehicle have been redesigned to keep people a safe distance apart.
The Detroit automakers have many older workers in states such as Michigan that were hit hard by the pandemic. For the automakers and their suppliers, many of which began reopening their plants last week, the restart is critical to ending the cash drain caused by a two-month shutdown forced on them by Covid-19.