Good morning. Welcome to Axio's Today. We made it to Wednesday. It's March 10th. I'm Nila Booty.

And I'm Erica Pandey, here to help Nile out this week. I'll be back later in the show with

how the latest royal family controversy is reminding Brits of Brexit. In a few minutes,

we'll have the days news. But first, today's one big thing. From our series, The Week America

changed the dramatic decision to shut down auto factories.

In the early weeks of March last year, the auto industry was struggling.

One of the biggest issues to face was how to keep workers safe on the job during the pandemic.

Office workers from the big three were sent home in early March, but nearly 150,000 factory

workers were required to stay on the line. Frustrations grew, and something had to change.

Joanne Muller is Axio's transportation reporter. There are two important people in this story.

One is this guy, Rory Gamble, who's the president of the United Auto Workers Union.

And the other is Bill Ford Jr. He's Ford's executive chairman and the great grandson of Henry Ford.

Ford is a very family-oriented company, and Bill has always been close to employees. He even

plays hockey with them sometimes. Gamble was coming in after there had been a really big scandal

in the leadership at the union. And so he was in the process of trying to restore the union's

credibility. Both men were worried about what to do to protect workers as this coronavirus started

to spread. Working in a auto factory, these cars are moving down the assembly line, and you have

to climb right inside the car. To put in parts, you're often back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder.

The workers were beginning to get very worried about whether they were actually at risk every

time they came to work. There was a lot of uncertainty about the virus, and a lot of rumors,

a lot of disinformation, everybody was scared. Nobody knew whether this silent killer was

in the plant. In fact, in one instance, there was a person who vomited on the floor of the factory,

...