Over 60 front office workers are at least temporarily out of work down in Arlington. That as the Texas Rangers furlough 12% of their pool of 500+ employees. Furloughs are affecting both business operations and baseball operations.
Team co-chairman Ray Davis has released a statement about the Texas Rangers furlough in which he says that budget cuts and salary decreases have not been enough to offset losses resulting from the lack of ticket sales and minor league baseball, making the furloughs inevitable. He says that he “remains optimistic” that the furloughed employees will be brought back in the future.
His full statement:In March, as we were confronted with the coronavirus pandemic, my goal was to avoid furloughs. Unfortunately, after four months of cost savings measures, budget cuts and salary decreases, the severe financial consequences of the shutdown and lingering uncertainty about when we will play in front of fans, have left us out of options.
Effective today, we instituted furloughs across our organization. The furloughs, which touch a number of baseball and business departments, reflect the realities of playing in an empty Globe Life Field, the shutdown of minor league baseball and other considerations related to the business challenges we face.
I understand this causes significant hardship for some of our employees and their families. We have spent a great deal of time trying to find another course that would be less painful. I wish there was another way, but this decision is necessary for us to endure this crisis and emerge as strong as possible on the other side.
I remain optimistic that we will be able to welcome our furloughed employees back to work in the future.
The Texas Rangers furlough comes after the team cut salaries at the outset of the pandemic. The team then came under fire last month for effectively ordering employees back to work at Globe Life Field rather than allowing then work remotely. This, combined with many Rangers employees not wearing masks at work and what some employees considered to be the team’s cavalier attitude toward the pandemic, led to them telling reporters that they were “terrified.” Now many of those employees will be out of work altogether.
A bad time to work for the Rangers.
