Union Pacific has begun furloughing employees at one of its North Little Rock facility.
Many of the employees at the Jenks Locomotive Facility will be furloughed as the company closes the facility in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that employee notifications for the furloughs were issued on Thursday.
According to Union Pacific’s corporate website, the Jenks facility employs more than 1,100 workers, who are responsible for maintenance of the company’s 7,000 locomotives.
The facility measures 272,000 square feet with the main Jenks Shop taking up 227,000 square feet. While the majority of the Jenks facility is made up of the heavy locomotive repair shop, it also has a material storage yard, storage tracks, a load test facility, a shutdown/startup area, a locomotive paint shop, air brake shop, wheel shop, turbo repair shop and more.
In an email, Union Pacific senior director for corporate communications and media relations Kristen South told the Democrat-Gazette that the furloughs were a result of declines in business and that the company would reevaluate the situation later in May to determine if operations can resume on June 1.
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