(Reuters) - General Motors Co (N:GM) said on Tuesday an employee at its Michigan technical center tested positive for coronavirus.
The Warren technical center houses about 20,000 employees. The employee who tested positive works at the Cole Engineering Center on the tech center campus north of Detroit.
GM said its medical team is working to speak with co-workers who may have had direct contact with the infected employee, and they will be told to self-quarantine for 14 days.
GM officials learned that the employee had tested positive for the highly contagious COVID-19 respiratory illness on Monday, after the company had issued an order that salaried employees should work from home. Access to the Cole building was restricted, and the building was cleaned, GM spokesman Jim Cain said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, GM’s North American factories are still operating. The company has reduced overtime and shortened some work shifts to allow more time for cleaning of common areas and access points where workers line up and go through turnstiles to get to their work stations.
GM, Ford Motor Co (N:F) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (ML:FCHA) are working with the United Auto Workers union to determine how best to protect workers at their U.S. factories, where thousands of employees stand along assembly lines and congregate in cafeterias and break areas.
As of Tuesday, the companies were still operating their U.S. plants, which build some of the most profitable trucks and sport utility vehicles the Detroit Three sell.