April 29, 2020 508 PM
OJINAGA — The City of Presidio has been hit hard by concerns over coronavirus. With little to no cash reserves, city leaders worry they could max out their budget, as The Big Bend Sentinel reported last week.
But it’s not all bad news for the Presidio-Ojinaga area. With some big institutional employers like Border Patrol in the area, many local workers have held onto essential jobs. And in Ojinaga, around 300 employees at local Solitaire Homes facilities are receiving full pay while they shelter-at-home, Solitaire Homes representative H. Cowan said in an interview last week.
Like much of the United States, Mexico has imposed emergency orders limiting nonessential activity and closing some workplaces. Those rules applied to most maquiladoras except for some considered essential.
Those essential designations might have applied to Solitaire Homes — but the company decided to take the safe route, Cowan said.
“Not knowing, we took the position that the decree from the federal government was to send everyone home,” he said. The workers are on furlough, with pay.
Coronavirus lockdowns have posed unique challenges to maquiladoras like Solitaire. With most of its employees in Ojinaga and facilities on both sides of the border, workers need to regularly cross the border in a time of restrictions on movement. The United States and Mexico closed their ports to nonessential travel last month.
And while it can be hard enough to keep track of the patchwork of local, state and federal coronavirus guidance, companies like Solitaire must also worry about the rules in another country.
Coronavirus lockdowns are still a reality in Mexico, while in Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he would start easing health restrictions on Friday. Cowan could not be immediately reached for comment on the impact of the revised state guidance.
In the meantime, all the company can do is “reassess every month,” Cowan said. He said Solitaire will continue to pay workers even if they can’t return by mid-May but acknowledged, “I’m not sure it’ll be full pay.”
Going forward, though, Cowan was certain of one thing: Solitaire Homes will weather the coronavirus storm.
“This is a temporary blip for us and thousands of factories of all kinds,” he said. “We’re fortunate that we have the ability to hang on here, look for the turn and be ready to crank back up.”
Part of that is the mobile home business. While “demand has dampened for a while,” he thinks there will continue to be a market for the company’s product.
“People haven’t said they’re not going to buy [a mobile home],” he said, citing recent stats from the industry. “They’re just not going to buy one right now.”
