19/6/97

Do the right thing

    The factory burned down, leaving 3,000 people jobless in a blue-collar American town with no other jobs available. The owner said through his spokesman that it was a terrible blow that would kill the town, but it is the government that must assume responsibility for the workers' welfare. He thanked them for their loyalty and wished them a Merry Christmas. He deeply regreted that it would be economically unfeasible to rebuild his textile mill. When insurance paid up, he retired.
    Tough luck, but that's life, eh?
    It's a true story. The first four words of it.
    What really happened is a fairy tale.
    Aaron Feuerstein was celebrating his 70th birthday with his family when he got word that his sprawling 750,000-square-meter factory, Malden Mills, was consumed by the worst fire in Massachusetts this century. His $400 million-a-year business, which produced synthetic insulation fabrics, was a total loss.
    The next day, in the depressed town of Lawrence, he assembled his workers and spoke to them. What he said made him an American legend.
    He announced that everyone would continue to receive their salaries. That he would go on funding their health benefits. That Christmas bonuses would be paid out, on schedule, two weeks hence.
    He vowed that the workers, and their town, would not be abandoned.
    That he was assuming responsibility for their welfare.
    That 200 employees were being recalled immediately, with more to follow.
    That he would not quietly collect the insurance money and retire. That the factory would be rebuilt, guaranteeing employment for every one of them.
    Then he told them why. Morality, he explained, means more than money. "In those circumstances where there is a moral vacuum," he said that day, quoting Hillel, "do everything within your power to be a man." That is what he had learned from his religion, his Jewish religion.
    And people wept.
    As fast as that fire swept through Malden Mills the day before, his conscience blazed through America.
    Like some freak of nature, he was inundated by the nation's bugeyed media. Mass-circ magazines from Reader's Digest, Parade and People to Fortune and Forbes -- and, most fittingly, the Journal of Innovative Management -- ran exuberant features on the Feuerstein "miracle."
    On top of all that, the height of incredibility: praise for a factory owner from labor leaders. "He's sharing his profits with the people that helped him make those profits. He absolutely does not have to," said Joseph Faherty, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, adding that Feuerstein's ethical commitment was unprecedented in recent memory.
    Donations poured in. Thousands of people wrote letters to Feuerstein. President Clinton phoned him, praised him, invited him. 
    Feuerstein could not understand why everyone made such a fuss. "What," he said, "for doing the right thing?"
    (Do the right thing. Remember how filmmaker Spike Lee interpreted that credo? By burning down a white man's business.)
    Critics assert that, gestures aside, Feuerstein took a great financial risk by rebuilding the factory in Lawrence and supporting 3,000 families at a cost of $1.5 million a week.
    Later, when it became apparent some could not be reemployed, he hired someone to help each of them find new jobs -- and generously provided severence pay of up to six months' wages, plus health insurance premiums for three months.
    At a White House meeting, on national television, at numerous ceremonies honoring him, Feuerstein preached that what he did should set an example for other CEOs -- that civic responsibility should not be weighed in dollar terms.
    "I haven't really done anything," he told one reporter. "I don't deserve credit. Corporate America has made it so that when you behave the way I did, it's abnormal."
    Even before the fire, Feuerstein's style went against the grain. He's perfectly comfortable to roll up his sleeves and sweat it out with his workers at the lowest end of the manufacturing process. He remained in the region while other industries skedaddled in search of cheap labor. Salaries at Malden average $12.50 per hour, one of the highest textile wages in the world, more than six times what he could have paid had he moved his operations to Mexico.
    Don't ask this CEO about corporate downsizing or strategic relocation.
    His magnanimity does not surprise Rabbi Gershon Gewirtz of Young Israel of Brookline. When the synagogue was destroyed by fire three years ago, the Feuerstein family donated $2 million for its reconstruction.
    Feuerstein is Orthodox and does not work on Shabbat. A health nut, he jogs every second day while reciting Psalms to himself. An hour a day he exercises -- to the verse of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats.
    Even his major product, Polartec, is a matter of principle: it is made chiefly from recycled plastic bottles.
    He could have got away with a token monetary gesture to his workers and still been lionized; in rebuilding, he could have proceeded with modest, scaled down plans, but instead pumped more than $300 million into what the Journal of Innovative Management called "the most technically and environmentally advanced textile plant in the world"; and indeed, in strictly economic terms, the risks incurred by his largesse were utterly insane. He could be a rich retiree, satisfied that he exceeded his obligations.
    He could have settled for being a good guy. Or even a great guy. There are few enough of those. But what we sorely need these days are genuine heroes, and that is what Aaron Feuerstein is.

    Thank you, sir.