Detroit automakers shut down their North American plants this week amid growing fears over coronavirus spreading among blue-collar employees working in tight quarters.

Soon they could be back – building ventilators as a shortage presents the US with a potential health crisis.

Relations between the Big Three – General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler – have been tense of late after GM workers walked out in their first strike in a decade.

But most workers are probably open to returning to the line, said D’Andre Jackson, a United Auto Workers (UAW) committee representative at GM’s Flint Assembly Plant. He added that he would “go back if it would help the country”.

“I think the majority of the UAW members wouldn’t mind doing what it takes to get America back running,” Jackson said. Though workers just demanded to leave the plant over coronavirus fears, Jackson said the cause has changed.

“Instead of working for profit, you’re working to help save some lives, and I think a lot of people would join in on that,” he said. “It’s what they did during wartime, and that’s what they say we’re in now. I think that if it was on a voluntary basis they could get people to go back in.”

Both automakers have confirmed that they are in discussions with the US government, which this week invoked the Defense Production Act, legislation that goes back to the second world war and grants the president broad powers to direct industrial production.

“Right now, we are doing an internal study to evaluate this as an option, and we are looking at ways we could help during this crisis including potentially supporting production of medical equipment such as ventilators,” a GM spokeswoman, Jeannine Ginivan, told the Guardian.

However, a United Auto Workers spokesman, Brian Rothenberg, said the proposal had not been run by the union. Its leadership was busy working to shut down the plants and did not immediately have a comment, he added.

It’s unclear how retooling the factories or sending workers back into them during a pandemic might work. The Trump administration economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, told Fox News this week that an executive said she “might even ask them to do it on a voluntary basis for civic and patriotic reasons. That’s the kind of can-do spirit that we’re hearing and seeing”.

Ford, which will suspend production following Thursday evening shifts through 30 March, said in a statement that it “stands ready to help the administration in any way we can, including the possibility of producing ventilators and other equipment”.

“We have had preliminary discussions with the US governments and are looking into the feasibility. It’s vital that we all pull together to help the country weather this crisis and come out the other side stronger than ever,” it said.

In the meantime some 150,000 UAW workers will be put on a temporary layoff. A GM spokesman, David Barnas, said employees “will be compensated”, though specifics were still being hammered out.

“It’s the right thing to do, but they should’ve done it a couple days ago,” said a worker from Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant who declined to provide his name.

The UAW has been pushing for temporary closures for several days. Automakers initially resisted those calls, prompting threats of a walkout among an increasingly frustrated workforce. On Monday, UAW Local 600 filed a grievance at the Dearborn Truck Plant in which it demanded a two-week suspension and coronavirus testing for all employees.

Any return to work will have to come with better safety protections for workers during the pandemic.

The UAW president, Rory Gamble, said temporary closures were “the prudent thing to do”.

“These companies will be put on notice that the UAW will use any and all measures to protect our brothers and sisters who are working in their facilities,” Gamble said. “And make no mistake, we have powerful allies who have stepped up to help us.”