[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S323-S324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING AARON FEUERSTEIN

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, after the devastation of a mill fire 
in Methuen, MA, threatened the community and 2,400 workers who depended 
on it, Aaron Feuerstein could have turned his back on his employees and 
closed the factory or moved it out of State. But he chose to stay. He 
chose to help, and to give something back to those who worked for him. 
He offered to pay everyone, and he even gave his employees their 
Christmas bonuses, will pay their health care premiums for 90 days, and 
is working to open the factory again as soon as possible.
  Mr. President, Aaron Feuerstein's extraordinary generosity during 
this holiday season has moved Massachusetts and the Nation, and made 
all of us believe again in the power of community and the real spirit 
of America. What he has done to help so many families will never be 
forgotten, and I know that my colleagues in the Senate join me in 
congratulating him for setting an example of loyalty, leadership, and 
compassion which is too often lacking in contemporary American society.
  He has shown us what true success in business is all about, and what 
our economy is all about. It's about helping people and families to 
prosper and to grow together--build together and work together toward a 
common goal.
  The news reports of the reactions of Aaron's workers to his 
generosity are heartwarming; and the warm response of his loyal 
employees is a tribute to him and should be the greatest holiday gift 
anyone could receive.
  Mr. President, Aaron Feuerstein has earned a special place in our 
hearts, and has set a new standard for American corporate leadership.
  I have joined with the distinguished senior Senator from 
Massachusetts and the Massachusetts congressional delegation in 
pledging to do what we can, at the Federal level, to help this factory 
and community recover from this catastrophic fire, and I know that my 
colleagues in the Senate will join me in congratulating Aaron for 
showing America that loyalty is an essential ingredient not only in 
business but in the life of a community.
  Mr. President, I ask that a recent editorial from the Boston Globe by 
David Nyhan about the generosity of Aaron Feuerstein be printed in the 
Record.
  The editorial follows:

                     The Mensch Who Saved Christmas

                            (By David Nyhan)

       Were it not for the 45-mile-an-hour winds ripping out of 
     the Northwest, the sparks that they carried and the 
     destruction they wrought, Aaron Feuerstein today would be 
     just another rich guy who owned a one-time factory, in a 
     country full of the same.
       But the fire that destroyed New England's largest textile 
     operation Monday has turned this 70-year-old businessman into 
     a folk hero. If a slim, determined, devoutly-Jewish textile 
     manufacturer can be Santa Claus, then Feuerstein is, to 2,400 
     workers whose jobs were jeopardized by the fire.
       The flames, so intense and widespread that the smoke plume 
     appeared in garish color on TV weathermen's radar maps, 
     presented Feuerstein with a stark choice: Should he rebuild, 
     or take the insurance money and bag it?
       Aaron Feuerstein is keeping the paychecks coming, as best 
     he can, for as long as possible, while he rushes to rebuild, 
     and restore the jobs a whole valley-full of families depend 
     upon.
       Everybody got paid this week. Everybody got their Christmas 
     bonus. Everybody will get paid at least another month. And 
     Feuerstein will see what he can do after 

[[Page S324]]
     that. But the greatest news of all is that he will rebuild the factory.
       The man has a biblical approach to the complexities of 
     late-20th-century economics, capsulated by a Jewish precept:
       ``When all is moral chaos, this is the time for you to be a 
     mensch.''
       In Yiddish, a mensch is someone who does the right thing. 
     The Aaron Feuerstein thing. The chaos was not moral but 
     physical in the conflagration that began with an explosion 
     and soon engulfed the four-building Malden Mills complex in 
     Methuen, injuring two dozen workers, a half-dozen firemen and 
     threatening nearby houses along the Merrimack River site.
       The destruction was near-absolute. It is still inexplicable 
     how no one perished in a fast-moving firestorm that lit up 
     the sky. This was one of New England's handful of 
     manufacturing success stories, a plant that emerged from 
     bankruptcy 14 years ago. The company manufactures a trademark 
     fabric, Polartec fleece, used extensively in outdoor clothing 
     and sportswear by outfits such as L. L. Bean and Patagonia.
       The company was founded by Feuerstein's grandfather in 
     1907, and its history over the century has traced the rise, 
     fall and rise again of textile manufacturing in New England 
     mill towns.
       Most of the textile makers fled south, leaving hundreds of 
     red brick mausoleums lining the rocky riverbeds that provided 
     the waterpower to turn lathes and looms before electricity 
     came in. The unions that wrested higher wages from flinty 
     Yankee employers were left behind by the companies that went 
     to the Carolinas and elsewhere, to be closer to cotton and 
     farther from unions.
       The Feuerstein family stuck it out while many others left, 
     taking their jobs and their profits with them. The current 
     boss is one textile magnate who wins high praise from the 
     union officials who deal with him.
       ``He's a man of his word,'' says Paul Coorey, president of 
     Local 311 of the Union of Needleworkers, Industrial and 
     Textile Employees. ``He's extremely compassionate for 
     people.'' The union's New England chief, Ronald Alman, said: 
     ``He believes in the process of collective bargaining and he 
     believes that if you pay people a fair amount of money, and 
     give them good benefits to take care of their families, they 
     will produce for you.''
       If there is an award somewhere for a Compassionate 
     Capitalist, this man should qualify, hands-down. Because he 
     is standing up for decent jobs for working people at a time 
     when the vast bulk of America's employer class is chopping, 
     slimming, hollowing-out the payroll.
       Job loss is the story of America at the end of the century. 
     Wall Street is going like gangbusters, but out on the 
     prairie, and in the old mill towns, and in smalltown America, 
     the story is not of how big your broker's bonus is this 
     Christmas but of how hard it is to keep working.
       The day after the fire, Bank of Boston announced it will 
     buy BayBanks, a mega-merger of financial titans that will 
     result in the elimination of 2,000 jobs. Polaroid, another 
     big New England employer, announced it would pare its payroll 
     by up to 2,000 jobs. Across the country, millions of jobs 
     have been eliminated in the rush to lighten the corporate 
     sled by tossing overboard anyone who could be considered 
     excess baggage by a Harvard MBA with a calculator for a 
     heart.
       Aaron Feuerstein, who went from Boston Latin High School 
     and New York's Yeshiva University right into the mill his 
     father owned, sees things differently: The help is part of 
     the enterprise, not just a cost center to be cut.
       ``They've been with me for a long time. We've been good to 
     each other, and there's a deep realization of that, that is 
     not always expressed, except at times of sorrow.''
       And it is noble sentiments like those, coming at a time 
     when they are most needed, that turns times of sorrow into 
     occasions of triumph.

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