Malden Mills (Employees)

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Malden Mills (Employees)

Did the employees receive moral, ethical action?

• Feuerstein was a man of integrity who "put empathy above personal gain" (Kreiter).
• Feurestein paid the employees salaries for 90 days even if they weren't working.
• He was responsible for all his employees and vowed to take care of them and save their jobs.
• All the employees received a Christmas bonus (from personal savings) after the tragic fire. It was a blessing during that holiday season.

• The employees were grateful for Feuerstein's moral and ethical actions. Their jobs were saved.
• Many employees were not surprised by his generosity and kindness after the fire; since he had always been a charitable man and leader.
• The employees were overwhelmingly thankful. They proved their gratitude after the plant re-opened and "there was increased effort and productivity by Feuerstein's employees" (Gill).
• Even though the employees were grateful, most of them had to get laid off, since the company declared bankruptcy once again.

References

Leung, Rebecca. “The Mensch Of Malden Mills.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 3 July 2003,

www.cbsnews.com/news/the-mensch-of-malden-mills/

Nohria, Nitin, Thomas R. Piper, and Bridget Gurtler. "Malden Mills (A)." Harvard Business

School Case 404-072, December 2003. (Revised August 2006.)

Kreiter, S. (2015, November 29). ‘The Mensch of Malden Mills’ at 90 - The Boston Globe. Retrieved September 01, 2017, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/11/29/the-mensch-malden-mills/0BvhlVZgPxveuD9s9eAY1O/story.html

Moreno, K. (2003, April 14). Trial by Fire. Retrieved September 03, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0414/092.html

Howell, S. M. (1998). Manufacturing mill fire, Methuen, Massachusetts. Homeland Security.

Where is Feuerstein now?

• Although the company did fail in the end, Feuerstein did what he could for his employees.
• Feuerstein established Malden Mills company not to make great profit, but to deliver a high quality product to benefit consumers.
• After Feuerstein retired and now in his nineties, he is not living a luxurious life, “[he] and his wife, Louise, live comfortably but modestly in a five-room condominium. No chauffeurs, no private planes” (Leung, 2003).

By: Angelica You, Helena Chiappa, Jack Willmot, Alexa Vandepoll, Megan Zaccario, Nicole Caponigro, Alyssa Albarella

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"A CEO With a Heart"

• If Feuerstein did not deliver his employees full wages during the rebuilding of the company..
• the employees would not have been so eager to come back to work.
• a majority of his workers may even quit
• While many people had viewed this as a poor business decision, in the long run, this strengthened his reputation.
• company got greater publicity
• received several financial support from banks, government, suppliers, and faithful customers. (Leung 2003)

• Feuerstein decided to pay all 3,100 Malden Mills employees their full pay and benefits for 90 days that followed the fire.
• He continued a program which was designed to help the workers purchase their first home.
• He ended up extending 90 days of pay to six months.

Before the fire

Life of the Employees: Who were they?

What did Feuerstein do for the employees after

December 11, 1995

• This evening began the same as many others did. Approximately 300 workers were present in the mill going about their daily routines.
• At about 8 P.M. everybody was shocked when a fire sparked on the textile line within the mill, injuring 24 fellow employees.
• At 9 P.M. tragedy struck again when another fire began in the boiler room of the Monomac. The flames were fed by 40 mph winds which quickly spread the fire to other parts of the mill.
• Mill owner Aaron Feuerstein came to the scene of the fire, which ironicly was on the same day of his birthday celebration. His first words were "My God, it's like Dredsen! Did our people get everybody out? Were they all alive"

• Primarily resided in Lawrence, Massachusetts
• Income of $12,000 a year
• Latino, Dominican Republic, & Puerto Rican ethnicities
• One of the poorest cities in the U.S.
• Unemployment
• Little education
• Surrounding abandoned businesses
• Criminal activity

"Malden Mills (A)" case study

from the Harvard Review

(Nohria, Piper, Gurtler, 2006).

• Feuerstein immediately announced he would pay employees full salary for 60 days, including benefits
• In those 60 days alone he paid out over 25 million dollars
• Feuerstein also decided not to cut costs by relocating the business
• He quickly gained recognition as a hero for choosing to continue paying his employees
• Feuerstein also began rebuilding the mill as soon as possible with approximately 300 million dollars from insurance

• The Methuen Fire Department responded to about forty fire alarms per year at the Malden Mills complex in recent years”(Howell)
• One of the fires before 1995 was a major explosion in the hopper room that seriously burned several workers (Howell)
• “According to documents and depositions in suits and counter suits, Malden repeatedly put its employees in harm’s way and should have known about unsafe working conditions-but didn’t do enough to fix them and, instead, lobbied regulators to back off.” (Moreno)
• In 1994, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited that Malden Mill was putting the workers in the Flock division at risk of being hurt from a fire/explosion and said that the flock had potential to explode, this would force Malden Mills install expensive explosion proof electrical equipment, so the company lobbied the U.S. OSHA (Moreno)