According to a report from The Hawk Eye, employees at a CNH Industrial plant in Burlington, Iowa have been temporarily laid off, possibly for as long as 4 weeks. The plant's three production lines will return as staggered lines over the next 2-4 weeks.

These layoffs come after two groups representing CNH Industrial employees at the Burlington location and the company's Racine, Wis. location, United Auto Workers Local 807 and Local 180, filed grievance with CNH Industrial over safety concerns related to the spread of COVID-19, including a lack of personal protective equipment and insufficient social distancing.

One employee, however, said that staff were told layoffs were related to a "lack of work to be done, not because of safety concerns." 

A Facebook post from CNH Local 180 said, "While on shutdown, the company [CNH] will address all the gaps in the (health and safety) of the workplace, to include expanding cleaning crews, hand sanitizer will be given to each employee in small bottles that will be refilled by the company as needed, rubber gloves will be made available, and they are trying to secure respirators.”

CNH Industrial also recently announced a two-week suspension of its European assembly operations,