Lockheed Martin addresses concerns about safety amid coronavirus spread, union says
The president of largest union at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth said he has been working with company leaders to make sure employees are safe while working as the threat of coronavirus spreads.
Paul Black, the head of the Lockheed Martin District Lodge 776 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said working with Lockheed officials has been “trying at times,” but that he and his business representatives have walked the floor of the Fort Worth location to talk with members and lodge complaints.
“If we see things that we think need attention, like if the break room or restrooms need to be sanitized, we report it to the company and ask them to take action,” Black said on Monday.
The response, he said, is sometimes slower than the union would like, but he says Lockheed has been working with them.
“None of us saw this coming and like a lot of other companies, it’s been hard to come by masks and hand sanitizer,” he said. “I know they have made efforts to get some of that stuff and I think some of it has started to come in and from what the company is telling me, they’ve got their hands on some masks. So they have been responsive, sometimes it’s not as quickly as we’d like but some of that is based on the supply chain.”
Concerns about safety at Lockheed Martin have grown since Lockheed was deemed an essential business. Though company leaders say that everyone who can work home is, efforts to clean the plant entirely aren’t possible when you’re building aircraft, Black said.
“The Navy and (Department of Defense) made it clear that they expect them to stay open,” Black said. “I think if Lockheed were to get relief from the DOD or Capitol Hill to where they were able to close, they would probably look into doing that. But it seems like it’s a business as usual sort of attitude from the DOD and Navy, so unfortunately that leaves us dealing with trying to manage the day-to-day issues and worry, fear, concern that there is out there in the factory.”
And the concerns grew even more on Sunday when news about an employee who died after a COVID-19 exposure was made public.
Claude Daniels, a 43-year veteran at the company, reported to his boss that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the novel coronavirus on March 31. A few days later, Daniels became symptomatic. While the company said it couldn’t confirm the cause of death, several employees said his family confirmed Daniels died of COVID-19.
Employees have told the newspaper that they’re worried infections will begin to spread around the plant. As of Sunday afternoon, eight campus employees had been diagnosed with COVID-19, spokesman Ken Ross said on Sunday.
Black said employees with positive results and those who are quarantined are still getting paychecks, and he’s doing what he can to stop future spread.
In his walks around the campus, Black said he’s seen some areas that are doing proper social distancing (staying at least 6 feet apart) but other areas that aren’t. He’s doing another walk through with the company on Tuesday afternoon to see if his concerns have been addressed.
“I’ve seen people in the break rooms who were still sitting together at lunch, but now the company has reported today that they are going to remove more of the seating,” Black said, adding that unused areas of the factory will be reopened as makeshift break rooms that are better for distancing.
As far as working, sometimes it’s not possible to distance, he said.
“Some areas you’re not on top of each other and you do have a distance but many other areas you don’t have that luxury and you are working on top of each other,” he said. “The nature of the business is there’s nothing you can do about that.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 5:07 PM.
