We want staff back in work and on full pay ASAP, says Jim
crisis meant that was no longer possible.
Amid many supporter concerns about the club's cashflow situation, Rodwell has said that while there is no threat to the club's future, it is a 'very difficult situation' and that this was why season card holders face a wait of two months for refunds.
"We want to get our staff back to work as quickly as is humanly possible, so they can start earning again at a normal level,” Rodwell said.
"When the football club put staff on furlough back in March, the club undertook to top up salaries to 100 per cent until the end of June, and I think the hope was at that time that this shutdown would not have gone on beyond that.
"But it has, and this [no longer topping up pay] is something we’ve had to do to run the club as prudently as possible.
"I feel for those staff members, absolutely I do, and the aim is to get them back into the business as quickly as we can.
"I think they want to come back to work, and I want to meet people because the timing of my appointment during the shutdown means I haven’t been able to see staff members face to face yet."
Some club staff initially furloughed have been brought back in departments such as retailing and ticketing.
Rodwell says more will return when a start date is known for the 2020/21 season, with the Sunderland CEO having approved of suggestions of a restart around mid-September.
"We’ve asked some more staff to come back," Rodwell said.
"From our point of view, normal service will only really be resumed when we know when the season will start and how many spectators we will be able to have inside the stadium.
"When we know those two things, we’ll work backwards from there and it will be all hands to the pump to prepare for the new season.
"Until then, we are trying to keep the cost base as low as we can.
“But we have taken some more staff off furlough – people in retail, ticketing, a few in the football department, etc.
"We are taking people off furlough as quickly as we can, and certainly as quickly as we need to.
"When we know when the season will start, and if we are told we can get say 30 or 40 per cent of capacity inside the ground, then we can start to plan, and then it will be hell for leather.
"If it’s, for example, a midSeptember start, we would have to be back in pre-season before the end of July.
"Even before then, there would be a period of time needed to wind things back up at the Academy of Light and get it ready for pre-season training.
"So it wouldn’t be a case of staff coming back off furlough and then us playing our first game.
“For me, it all becomes real as soon as we get that start date – that’s when we need to bring people back."
Given the controversial season card renewal process that has left many fans furious, Rodwell conceded that they would also look to bring back at least one member of staff in the supporter liaison office at some stage.
"We have had a conversation about that internally and that is something we will look to do pretty quickly," he said.
"It’s something we really need to discuss with the people concerned first, but it is something we are looking at."
Sunderland joined clubs across the division in opting to furlough their playing staff several months ago, with wages topped up to the full amount, rather than asking for deferrals or cuts.
The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) approved the measure, which remains in place.
Donald had said in his April letter that he had no plans to ask for deferrals, citing the fact that the players were ‘not on the wages of years gone by’.
The players can be recalled at short notice should a start date for next season be set, which Rodwell is hopeful will be before long.
He believes that a restart date of September 12th, tentatively proposed by the EFL, could be more realistic than another mooted date in late August.
Rodwell admitted the discrepancy would raise eyebrows.
"Players’ contracts are structured in a different way, so their wages are still being topped up to 100 per cent and we are hoping to get them back into the building shortly as well,” he explained.
"It’s an interesting moral point, particularly with the reductions that staff have seen.
“But the way that player contracts operate means they remain on full pay."