Hurricanes announce plan to compensate event staff at PNC Arena
The Carolina Hurricanes will compensate the PNC Arena and the team’s event staff for lost wages caused by the suspension of the 2019-20 season by the coronavirus pandemic.
Don Waddell, the Canes’ president and general manager, announced the decision Tuesday. Hourly staff will be compensated based on their expected workload during the Canes’ final seven March and April regular-season games at PNC Arena.
The funding will come from Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon, the Carolina Hurricanes Foundation and from a donation by the Hurricanes players. Dundon said Saturday that he had not asked the players to participate in the compensation plan but they wanted to be a part of it.
Waddell, in an interview Tuesday, said he first talked with Dundon on Thursday, when the NHL announced it was pausing the season, about a plan to pay the part-time workers at PNC Arena.
“I said we had a lot of employees who depend on their paycheck,” Waddell said. “People work second jobs for a reason. We have retirees who work for us but also people with second jobs who need that second income. I told him I want to look at it and he said put it together for him. We spent the next three days putting the spread sheet together, everybody who was on those spread sheets for the seven games. We added up the totals and I presented it to him this morning and it took him three seconds he said, ‘Let’s move forward, let’s pay them.’
“The players have been great. It just shows you the character of these players. They wanted to be a part of it and they contributed along with our foundation contribution. But the majority is coming from Tom.”
Waddell said the Hurricanes have about 1,400 part-time workers, and that for each Hurricanes game about 800 of that total would be working. Some work multiple games and some were scheduled to work all seven.
“I can’t say it affects every person (among the 1,400) but the schedule goes out at the beginning of the month and they had the option to sign for those games,” Waddell said. “Anyone who signed up before this happened and had already committed to work these games, we took care of them.”
PNC Arena’s food service, VAB Catering, will make a large food donation to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle on Thursday. The Raleigh-based non-profit is providing emergency food to families affected by the coronavirus crisis.
The Canes said Tuesday that none of its players, coaches or staff members has exhibited any signs of COVID-19.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
