Andy Revell feels responsible for his coworker and friend dying from the coronavirus last week. To try to make sure no one else dies, he’s leading a strike of shipyard workers.
Revell and about 40 other General Dynamics workers didn’t show up for their Tuesday shifts because they believe the company isn’t doing enough to make sure the virus doesn’t spread in the Norfolk shipyard of BAE Systems.
Revell, 42, who’s been with General Dynamics for about two years and works as a senior electrician on the USS Bulkeley, said he and about half of the company’s employees working at the BAE shipyard didn’t show up for their shifts on Tuesday and early Wednesday. He said he planned to hand out flyers to workers at 3 p.m. Wednesday as they were starting their shifts to explain why they should join the strike.
Revell, a supervisor who roves the Bulkeley to ensure other employees are doing good work, said he’s seen up to 25 people working in a space of about 1,000 square feet, often two or three feet from each other, for hours at a time.
Revell said he and others want General Dynamics to come up with and share a concrete plan of action for stopping the virus from spreading in the shipyard, where workers often have to work in tight spaces.
The federal government, not BAE Systems, oversees General Dynamics’ work on the Bulkeley, BAE spokesman Karl Johnson said in an interview. On Wednesday, BAE Systems started checking temperatures of everyone coming into the shipyard. Since March 23, the company has required everyone in the shipyard to practice social distancing by keeping six feet from each other, except if they have to work in tight quarters on ships to do their work.
In that case, BAE has required employees to cover their faces since April 5, when Defense Secretary Mark Esper required everyone do so on DOD properties when social distancing is impossible, Johnson said.
“Bull,” said General Dynamics worker Kim Sumner, 53. The metalworker said neither BAE nor General Dynamics have required or provided face masks at anytime.
A General Dynamics spokeswoman, Sheila Blackwell, said the company follows CDC recommendations to slow the spread of coronavirus and will continue to put “strict protocols” in place to keep employees safe. She said the company has made masks, gloves and hand sanitizer available to every employee, which Revell and Sumner said was false.
Robert Fentress, 44, died April 9, two days after testing positive for the coronavirus. Revell said he was overseeing Fentress on his last day of work, March 26. The next day, Fentress sought medical help. Around March 31, he was tested for the coronavirus and got the results a week later.
Since then, six people have been tested — two came back positive, three negative and the sixth is waiting for results, Revell said.
“I feel a personal responsibility for the safety of workers, the kind of responsibility that I really wish I could say I shared with the entire management,” Revell said.
Sumner, who also knew Fentress and described him as “a good, hardworking man,” said he feels like they’re just waiting for someone else to die.
Revell said he started emailing managers and human resources about a month ago, asking about how the company planned to respond to the coronavirus pandemic that would surely hit the shipyard sooner or later.
For 11 days, he got no response, he said. After that, Revell said, he received vague emails with no specifics about how the higher-ups planned to keep on-the-ground workers safe. Sumner, who’s been with General Dynamics for about a year and works with Revell on the Bulkeley doing metalwork, has joined the strike and said he won’t go back to work until the company makes it safe by providing things like masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.
Sumner said he has a 47-year-old wife who suffers from asthma, seizures and a compromised immune system. His 28-year-old son who lives with them has lupus.
“I just don’t want to bring stuff home that will kill my family,” he said. “We risking our lives.”
Revell said the overall message from higher-ups at the company has been clear: “Yeah, we’re concerned about you, but you know, not really enough to actually do anything.”
Revell said he talked with a General Dynamics vice president on the phone. He was getting the same rope-a-dope treatment. But once he mentioned the strike, the executive got combative. Other employees have told Revell that managers have threatened to reassign them if they join the strike.
Revell said he plans to skip his scheduled Thursday shift. His goal is to get as many other General Dynamics workers to join him, stop as much work as possible, and force the company to implement concrete measures to keep employees who have to work in tight spaces from spreading the disease.
“Higher-ups in the company need to see this thing growing and getting out of hand as fast as possible so that they’re willing to play ball,” he said.
Revell said he’s been talking with U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott’s offices in Washington, D.C., and locally to set up a phone call with the congressman, but hadn’t spoken to him by early Wednesday morning.
Scott, who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor, is pushing for future coronavirus-related legislation to include protections for healthcare and other “essential workers,” spokesman Austin Barbera said in an email. On March 30 during a conference call, he told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections, which don’t cover airborne infectious disease like the coronavirus, must be changed, according to a committee news release.
During the call, Scott mostly focused on doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers. But he also talked about other essential workers needing better protection from OSHA, people “at other essential establishments that remain open.”
“These workers are keeping our communities going right now, and they need to be protected,” he said.
Jonathan Edwards, 757-739-7180, jonathan.edwards@pilotonline.com
