The Texas plant that assembles General Motors’ hot-selling full-size SUVs will be back to three shifts Monday. That means nearly 5,000 workers rotating through the massive facility, just as novel coronavirus cases rise in the region and the plant confirms its first case.
The thought of it fills UAW Local 276 Shop Chairman Kenny Hines with trepidation. The plant is located 25 miles from Dallas, which this week became a hotbed of new coronavirus cases.
“I know we have a job to do — we’re considered essential workers in manufacturing — but if it’s not a nurse or something like that, I don’t believe anyone needs to be at work right now,” Hines told the Free Press. “We don’t have this virus under control as a nation.”