- General Motors Company (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU) all surged today. This is why.
General Motors Company (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU) restarted their US factories today with a number of major changes in place for protecting workers from the coronavirus, according to CNN.
Ford said it was expecting around 59,000 factory workers (around 80% of its workforce) to show up for work today.
And at GM, around 15,000 of the company’s 48,000 factory employees were expected to report to the company. And more will be reporting on-site again in the coming weeks.
Around one-third of Fiat Chrysler’s hourly workforce (16,000 people) were expected to start working again today.
For the safety and protection of the employees, the major automakers set up a number of protocols to adhere to social distancing rules.
“We work really hard at imagining a world with Covid-19 in an assembly plant,” explained Ford CEO Jim Hackett in an interview with CNN “So they have lots of consideration, of course, for social distancing. We used to have two people, for example, that would be inside the vehicle as it’s going down the assembly line. We stopped that.”
And the three automakers said that they would clean their facilities much more frequently and allocate extra time between work shifts for sanitization.
Ford was going to reduce from three shifts to two shifts in order to spend extra time cleaning. And Chrysler was going to spend 10 minutes per shift for cleaning. GM also reduced its shift count to one rather than two or three.
Plus the automakers said that they were going to screen employees before they leave for work and their temperatures would be checked as they enter plants.
Ford is testing watches that warns users if they get too close to someone else who is also wearing one.
Employees will be required to work at least 6 feet apart. Plus employee work stations are being separated by clear plastic panels. And the workers will also wear surgical-style face masks, face shields, or goggles while working closely with each other.
The three automakers are going to make changes to common areas like dining areas. At Chrysler, a break area table that normally has six people seated there now has plastic dividers that accommodate 3 people instead.
According to early reports, the worker attendance was at or above expectations at GM”s plants. Plus the operations were running smoothly.
Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) closed the day at a jump of 8.15%, General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) at 9.58%, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU) at 8.59%.
Disclosure: I own a small number of shares for all 3 automakers. I wrote this article myself and I do not have any business relationship with any company whose stock I write about. I am not a financial advisor and all articles are my opinion. You should do your own due diligence and consider talking to a financial professional before investing.
