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Mark Twitchell/THE MCDONOUGH COUNTY VOICE
The nearly 250 workers at the Macomb Pella plant will each have to take an unpaid, week-long furlough this year instead of utilizing voluntary layoffs as in the past three years, according to Plant Manager Kevin Gaul.
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MACOMB
Officials from the local Pella plant say the move to rotating furloughs instead of voluntary layoffs this winter is a better move for both the company and its employees.
The nearly 250 employees at the Macomb window manufacturing plant are each being given a week off without pay. Macomb Plant Manager Kevin Gaul said Tuesday that rotations for the furlough process are underway and will likely last into March.
“The last three years, actually, we’ve done voluntary layoffs in the winter, which is obviously something we want to get away from,” Gaul explained. “... The approach we’ve taken with the voluntary layoffs in the last few years has been around what volume was planned to be for the winter. It was a three-to-four-month type need, so when you think of doing a layoff like that, it puts a lot of churn into the business, as well as people’s lives.
“This year, we’re seeing this as a much shorter term thing, and that’s why we went to the rotating furloughs — to try to keep it very even across our business, and to try to minimize the overall impact on our team members.”
Gaul added that the labor reduction happens in the wintertime because that’s typically when there is the least need for Pella’s products.
In regards to the plant’s employees, Gaul said many will receive unemployment benefits during the week they’re furloughed.
“As volume dropped off for us and we slowed down into the winter season, quite a few of our team members have told us they’ve actually qualified for their ‘waiting week,’” Gaul said, referring to the one-week, unpaid period workers who have qualified for unemployment benefits must serve in Illinois. “A number of (employees have) qualified for that because we were on reduced hours.”
Despite the recent downturn in new home construction, Gaul and Macomb Mayor Mike Inman both said Tuesday that they expect the local Pella plant to be a long-standing part of the community.
“Pella has said it is committed to Macomb and its full-time team members, and I don’t think (the rotating furlough process) is anything to go against that commitment,” Inman said.