Due to the coronavirus outbreak, there is a huge demand for N95 respirators. As I listen to the clamoring in the media for more respirators, I realize how uninformed the public is about the manufacturing process. 3M makes N95 respirators at their Aberdeen, South Dakota plant (which is one of over 40 3M manufacturing plants in the U.S. with many more around the world). A peak inside the plant can be viewed on their website, https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/plant-locations-us/aberdeen/ If you have never seen the inside of a manufacturing plant, please take a look!
Tim, a machine production operator at 3M, recently said, “we know what we have to do.”
We praise our health care providers and teachers all the time. It is time to praise the manufacturing production workers! Especially during this time when office and tech workers can work at home in their pajamas and have flexible hours. Factory workers: not so much. They can’t take their production machines home. so they come to work when told, produce to specifications, inspect their work, comply with regulations and just do it! And now they must risk their own health and safety in this coronavirus swamp.
We unfortunately take them for granted. We think anyone can do their jobs, we minimize their tasks as merely manual labor.
A number of years ago, as a job analyst documenting work duties in a factory, I asked a machine operator, who was making tiny heart valves for babies, to tell me what she does. I was expecting, “insert, punch, remove, pack” type of answers. But no, she told me “I save babies’ lives.” I will NEVER forget that. She taught me a lesson which I knew in my head but not in my heart.
Every worker has a purpose, dignity, worth and value!
The factory employees who are working 24/7, while maintaining quality and safety, to produce respirators, face masks and sanitizer deserve our thanks, admiration and respect! Hats off to all the factory workers who are manufacturing products to keep the rest of us safe!