Boeing to limit N95 masks for its returning workers

Bloomberg

Boeing Co faces a quandary as it reopens its Seattle-area factories: how to keep its employees safe while minimising the use of protective gear that’s desperately needed for medical workers.
The planemaker plans to limit scarce N95 masks for plant workers, relying mainly on cloth face coverings. In an April 9 letter to Washington state officials, Boeing cited new US government guidelines directing companies to reserve the respirators for hospital staff on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While fabric face coverings are federally approved, union officials worry they won’t adequately protect mechanics toiling shoulder-to-shoulder in tight spaces such as fuel tanks inside wings. And with testing and safety equipment still hard to get, it’s a preview of the tug-of-war between safety and societal interests that other companies will face when they begin summoning house-bound employees back to work.
“We still have general concerns about how the company is able to keep the workplace safe when we go back,” said Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, which represents about 32,000 Boeing machinists in the Puget Sound region. “That’s the million-dollar question: How do you keep someone safe in an environment like this? Will cloth masks be good enough to stop the spread of the virus?”
As one of the largest US exporters and the second-largest defense contractor, Boeing is considered an essential employer. The company is allowed to resume manufacturing provided it complies with new state requirements for social distancing, sanitation and protective gear for employees working in close proximity.
The company said it will broadly restart operations next week, recalling another 27,000 employees to factories that were shuttered on March 25. Most white-collar workers will continue to telecommute, lowering the concentration of people in company facilities, Boeing said.
Returning employees will find an array of new protective measures in place, from more portable wash stations to temperature screening for employees worried they are running a fever. Washington state’s Department of Labor and Industries signed off on Boeing’s safety strategy on April 13, a day before the first mechanics reported back to its largest manufacturing hub. “We do not take the resumption of operations lightly, and understand the concerns that our employees and others who must access our sites will have,” Boeing said by email. “We are taking care to ensure that the work environment within our facilities is as safe as possible.”
Protective gear has emerged as a flash point at other companies such as Amazon. Boeing employees will be encouraged to wear cloth masks and the company will provide them, if need be, on sites where face coverings are required. Boeing said it will also make personal protective equipment available to those “working in areas where physical distancing cannot be maintained for an extended period.”