Rockets pledge to ‘take care’ of arena workers during stoppage

The Rockets are reportedly working on a plan to address the lost hourly income of Toyota Center employees affected by the NBA shutdown.

Rockets CEO Tad Brown told the Houston Chronicle on Friday that the organization is working on a plan to address the lost hourly income of Toyota Center employees who are missing assignments due to the coronavirus-induced shutdown of the NBA.

The Rockets still have nine of their 41 regular-season home games scheduled, and it is unclear whether those games will all be made up once the 2019-20 season resumes (if it does). Early indications are that the league’s stoppage will last for at least 30 days.

According to the Houston Chronicle‘s Jonathan Feigen, Brown did not go into specifics of the plan because it is still being formulated.

Brown said:

We’re putting together a plan to take care of our part-time employees during their time of need. … As we always have in times of crises, we will take care of our part-time employees, as well as all of our employees. We’re working internally to identify the best course going forward. But we are taking care of them.

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The issue of taking care of hourly workers affected by the shutdown came into greater focus after a similar pledge by Dallas owner Mark Cuban.

A separate report Friday indicated that Houston owner Tilman Fertitta had expressed frustration over the financial hits he’s recently taken due to empty restaurants (related to coronavirus) and early-season issues in China, owing to GM Daryl Morey’s controversial Hong Kong tweet.

However, it doesn’t appear that problem will keep Fertitta and the Rockets from addressing the needs of their hourly workers.

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