Bobcat Rolls Out New Safety Guidelines As Workers Return
Roughly 500 Workers Returning To Work Overnight And About 1,400 Workers In Total Will Be Back At Their Job Site For Bobcat.
FARGO, N.D. — “The salary employees and the people of West Fargo they’re all still working they are all still collecting paychecks and the bottom line is you don’t make money unless we are making you product,” President Of United Steelworkers Local 560 Will Wilkinson said
After talking with workers worried about the safety conditions at Doosan Bobcat facilities in Gwinner and Wahpeton, the company sent us information about how it will add new safety measures.
Roughly 500 workers returning to work overnight and about 1,400 workers in total will be back at their job site for Bobcat.
Those safety measures include workers being given gloves, masks and some face shields.
Changing start up shifts, adding floor markings for distancing, sanitizer station and having an on-site nurse.
Union President Will Wilkinson says he wants to make the company provide enough protection for workers and that no one is being put in any dangerous situation.
“The Smithfield plant is what we are trying to prevent; we are a rural area, and a lot of people come in. There are 14 hundred hourly employees at the plant if they come in there and COVID gets in there it will spread like it did at Smithfield. No one is going to die at work while I’m president, that’s not going to happen,” Wilkinson said
The Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls had more than 700 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and is now shut down.
Bobcat says they felt the two weeks off was enough time for the company to prepare for workers to come back.
“Ensuring that they are following the markings on the floor to make sure we are providing the proper social distancing, you know all those measures are being put in place and so it’s on all of us to make sure we follow those measures,” Corporate Communications For Bobcat Stacey Breuer said.
Breuer says they are constantly keeping an eye on guidelines and following recommendations from the state.
Wilkinson says union leadership will be doing everything in its power to keep employees protected.
“Making money is one thing; it’s a good job for a reason, but there is not enough money there to die; there is just not enough,” Wilkinson said.
