ORLEANS — Olney’s General Store in Barton’s village of Orleans has been feeling the absence of Ethan Allen employees.
“We really cater to the mill population,” said Olney’s manager April Lane. “We know when their breaks are.”
The huge plant across the street from Olney’s, where 234 employees typically make high-end cabinets, entertainment centers, buffets, dressers, nightstands, coffee tables and bed frames, sat largely idle Wednesday as employees and contractors continued to clean up from the flooding that shut the factory down two weeks ago.
Workers were told not to come to work, and were urged to file for unemployment compensation, employee Tyler Chesky said as he took a break at the gas station next to the plant on Wednesday.
On Monday, Gov. Phil Scott told VTDigger he understood the plant had laid off 200 workers. Asked about that figure, the plant’s manager, Mike Worth, said “fewer” than 200 workers have been laid off temporarily. He said there are no permanent layoffs.
Cameron Wood, policy and legislative affairs director for the Vermont Department of Labor, said he did not have any information about how many people from Ethan Allen have already applied for unemployment benefits.
When VTDigger visited Wednesday, Worth declined to allow a reporter to see the restoration work at the plant.
The workers normally come to Olney’s for coffee and breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon and cigarettes and beer when they get off at 3:30, Lane said.
“Our schedule rotates around the mill,” Lane said. “This town lives and breathes with that mill.”
With the loss of the mill workers since the factory flooded two weeks ago amid statewide catastrophic rainfall, business has been a lot slower in the Northeast Kingdom village of about 800 people.
“It’s rough,” Lane said. “There’s been a lot of stress in town.”
As he stocked shelves at Thibeault’s Market, employee Paul Falconer was also missing the Ethan Allen workers who normally come to buy lunch.
“So you’re missing that revenue,” he said.
Workers were beginning to trickle back to the plant this week, employees said. On Wednesday, David Hahn had just bought lunch at Olney’s. He builds cabinet drawers and said he has been going down to the factory basement to pick up drawer bottoms. A few people were brought in to fit drawers on Tuesday, he said.
“It’s pretty empty in there,” said Chesky, who also installs drawers and doors in the cabinets.
Wednesday was Chesky’s first day back on the job. He estimated that he was one of about 30 people working in the factory. He said his team was brought in first to catch up on cabinets that were already built so they could be moved on to final sanding, fixing trims and corners, staining and painting. He said he was told the employees who assemble the cabinets were scheduled to be back Thursday.
Sarah Mearhoff contributed reporting.
If you have been laid off from the Ethan Allen plant and want to share your experience, you can get in touch with reporter Fred Thys at fthys@vtdigger.org or leave a message in our tip drop.
