We need more businessmen like this guy. Preserving jobs in impovershed

[maveric]

neighborhood

http://www.eagletribune.com/framesets/news.htm

This guy is not your run of the mill american business owner. In 1995 he paid his employees full pay after a fire gutted the plant.

"Feuerstein gained national attention in 1995 when he continued to pay idled workers' salaries and health benefits after a major fire that threatened to shut down Malden Mills."

<snip>

"Many fear that without Malden Mills, the Arlington Neighborhood, already one of the poorest in the region, would deteriorate. The neighborhood, which stretches into both Methuen and Lawrence and surrounds the mill, has one of the densest concentrations of families living in poverty in the state, more than 90 percent of them Hispanic."

<snip>
"At a time when (jobs) are going by the wayside to have that kind of development and those kinds of jobs stay is a wonderful thing to happen here," Methuen Mayor Sharon M. Pollard said."


This is one one the poorest neighborhoods in america. I know because I grew up there.


If Malden Mills shuts down and sends jobs overseas this community would surely implode.

IMHO this guy is a saint.

[ikojo]

1. Aaron Feuerstein is a MENSCH!

According to Jewish tradition (and Mr Feuerstein is an orthodox Jew) the first question one will be asked on judgement day is "how did you conduct your business affairs?"

I recall reading articles in 1995 and 1996 where he responded that it was his faith that guided him in continuing to pay his employees even after the plant burned down. He also credited his faith with the decision not to move the plant to the non union South and then overseas. He said he felt he had an obligation (oooh what a concept!) to the people who did the work that helped make him a wealthy man.

The reason stories like this stay with us eight years after is because unfortunately they are rare.

I wonder if Mr Feuerstein's kids share his committment to that area of MA? Mr Feuerstein did not grow up wealthy and his kids did so I am sure they have a different view of the world.