The Loyalty of Aaron Feuerstein

Loyalty is a quaint virtue that has all but disappeared from the moral/ethical landscape. Just when we think it's an "every person for himself" world, someone shows us otherwise.

Aaron Feuerstein is a loyal guy. In fact he embraces loyalty like Polar Fleece hugs a schoolchild on a chilly fall morning. In a culture where work environments breed insecurity and layoffs are routine, Aaron Feuerstein (Few-er-stein) ranks as a hero in the cold-hearted world of work.
Decades ago when all the other textile mills left town to settle in sunnier locations, Feuerstein kept his Malden Mills factory in blue collar Lawrence, Massachusetts. The industry scoffed.
When the mill burned down just a few weeks before Christmas, Feuerstein - who is the chairman, president, and CEO of this company that manufactures Polar Fleece - announced almost immediately that his workers would continue to be paid. They would also receive health care benefits during the reconstruction of the factory. The business world reeled.
Even when a handful of workers sued him - in spite of his extraordinary generosity to them - he empathized with their plight. "They are poor people," Feuerstein explained, and ...