Living with the ongoing care required for two dependents with medical needs means Bree McMullan’s family relies heavily on the steady wages and insurance from her husband’s mining job.
But with WE Soda set to cut 40% of its workforce in Sweetwater County, McMullan is bracing for an uncertain future where the medical bills keep coming, even if the paychecks don’t.
“Insurance-wise, that’s one of the biggest reasons why my husband wanted to be there,” McMullan told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s helped us tremendously.”
McMullan and her husband share five children, including a 20-year-old daughter who had a baby of her own last year.
Both McMullan’s 18-year-old son and 1-year-old granddaughter were born with gastroschisis, a medical condition that caused them to have their intestines and other organs outside their bodies.
“It’s not hereditary,” McMullan said. “It’s just extremely rare luck of the draw, I guess, for it to happen twice in our family.”
For her son, living with that condition means regular doctor visits and specialized work with a dietician. For her granddaughter, the daily care is intensive.
“We give her blood clot shots at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m,” McMullan said. “We give her all of her feedings through a G tube every day, five times throughout the day and continues throughout the night.”
With everyone under one roof, the family handles her care at home, including daily intravenous nutrition and lipids delivered through a line that runs into her heart.
As they process the Wednesday layoff announcement, McMullan said she is trying to be a rock for her husband and not let herself succumb to fear for her family’s future.
“My husband and I have been through a lot of hardship,” McMullan said. “We will definitely be able to navigate these waters and be able to come out still with our heads above water in some form or way.”
What scares her most now, she said, is what the fallout of a massive layoff will be for the Sweetwater County community.
Ripple Effects
McMullan said that fear is tied closely to suicide, something her extended family has experienced firsthand.
When she heard the news of the sweeping layoffs, she said she thought first of the hundreds of miners whose livelihoods were suddenly in the balance.
“To hear this just immediately set me into a frenzy,” McMullan said. “Are some of these miners going to seek the thoughts of suicidal ideations and stuff, thinking that that's their only answer out of this?”
She also knows there are steep hurdles to mental-health resources. She said that when her daughter was seeking help for postpartum depression, psychiatrist visits were costing $700 each.
“We're going to have 300-plus employees who are going to have no income whatsoever,” McMullan said. “They’re not going to be able to afford that.”
She also fears the ripple effects will reach the schools.
“Several of these kids are going to be bullied because their parents can’t afford to buy them new pants and new shoes or school supplies,” McMullan said. “Kids are going to be bullied in school because parents can't afford for their cell phones to be on.”
She hopes to see the local school districts step up to help mitigate consequences, because the layoff announcement goes beyond the 350 miners who will lose their jobs.
“This isn’t just the parents,” McMullan said. “These are the families that are going to be struggling.”
McMullan’s husband sits at what she called a “teetering point,” meaning that based on his seniority number and how many jobs the company says it will cut, he could land on either side of the layoff line.
If the family has to relocate for work it will, she said, but it would mean leaving behind a deeply rooted chapter in Sweetwater County
“He’s a lifelong resident,” McMullan said. “And I’ve been here now for almost 23 years.”
‘Consider What’s At Stake’
As McMullan hopes to see the local school district as well as local mental health care providers take initiative, the daughter of a 20-year trona miner is going straight to the company's CEO.
The 24-year-old woman, who asked Cowboy State Daily not to include her name, said that she wrote to WE Soda CEO Alasdair Warren in hopes that he'll understand the sweeping layoffs are not just a number.
“I wanted him to know the real life behind it,” the daughter said. “I want people to understand how sincere I’m being. Not just for my family, our perspective, but literally the entire community.”
Her father has worked at the operation for 20 years, nearly her whole life, and she said he missed holidays, birthdays and other milestones to keep it running and provide for his family.
Over that time, she said, his co-workers became a second family who looked out for one another’s safety, and he watched their children grow up alongside his own.
“It's so sad,” she said. “Everything that they have just poured their heart and their life into, and they're just a speck of dust now that blows in the wind with this.”
She emphasized that she’s not angry at the company and she hopes, if Warren reads her message, he can tell that her heart is in the right place.
“I just want him to see us and sit with this with us, because it is incredibly hard,” she said. “I just want him to consider what's at stake. Not just for the company, but the people.”
Cowboy State Daily asked Craig Rood, director of government affairs for WE Soda, if Warren had received the message but did not receive a response by publication.
‘It’s A Huge Deal’
Representative Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, told Cowboy State Daily that this announcement hits at an especially bad time.
"That one's rough, and I think it's the tip of the iceberg, Wylie said. “A lot of families here, a lot of constituents are going to be out of work right before the holidays.”
He emphasized how drastically a cut of 350 employees will hit the county.
“I think like 3% of Sweetwater County's workforce is out,” Wylie said. “It’s a huge deal.”
The mayors of Rock Springs and Green River and the chairman of the Sweetwater County Commission released a joint statement Wednesday saying their first concern is for the affected employees and families, and pledging to work with WE Soda, Western Wyoming College and the state to connect workers with resources and jobs.
“These are not simply numbers on an employment report,” the statement said. “They are our friends, neighbors, and family members.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
