From Terry England -
"On Monday (March 30, 2020) Tennessee Governor Lee announced a "Safer At Home" order that closed all non-essential businesses. This order went into effect at 11:59pm on Tuesday (March 31, 2020) and is effective until April 14th. By definition, England Inc. would not be considered an essential business during our fight to control the spread of COVID-19.
With this news, we must close our manufacturing facilities effective next Monday, April 6th until the governor's order is lifted. During our closure, we will be asking some managers and other key personnel working in critical roles to continue working while following social distancing and other CDC guidelines. Some of these employees will be able to work remotely while many will be needed in their work areas. This will be necessary to assist us with any incoming orders, answering questions from our dealers and preparing our manufacturing locations for when we will be allowed to come back to work.
As we announced last week, all hourly employees will receive the normal pay for this week of our shutdown. Beginning next Monday, April 6th we will be signing up all employees laid off for unemployment. We are hearing that, due to the volume of unemployment claims being experienced with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, checks are running behind. Also, the recently passed stimulus package goes into effect on Monday, April 6 th which if eligible would increase the amount of unemployment received. Our payroll team has been working diligently to make this automatic mass filing happen so that our employees will not have to file on their own.
I cannot emphasize how important it is during this time that each of you stay safe at home and continue to follow the rules that are asked of us by the CDC to protect all family members. We will return to normal and when that occurs, we will need each of you to be with us. Stay safe, Terry."