
May 2nd / 4th, 2008
"Civic Leaders Shouldn’t Defend Hanesbrands"
Last week, the Winston-Salem Journal published a guest editorial written
jointly by Chamber CEO Gayle Anderson and Flow Motors CEO Don Flow.
Actually it wasn’t so much an editorial as it was a condescending lecture to
all of us misguided persons who just don’t understand what a great community
servant Hanesbrands CEO Richard Noll is. We just don’t appreciate the
tough decisions Richy Rich has to make in order to preserve his company. And we
have no right to suggest that Noll’s $2 million gift to the Arts Council
should be returned.
But AnderFlow’s lecture wasn’t really aimed at every misguided person in
the Triad. It was mainly targeted to award-winning Journal columnist Scott
Sexton, and to yours truly, the only two journalists who have consistently
criticized Noll for the economic devastation he has wrought, and the insulting way
in which he has tried to buy respectability.
Perhaps Noll thinks if he donates money to the Arts Council that it will
make us forget the 14,000 people he has laid off over the past year, including
over a thousand in Winston-Salem. Maybe he hopes that his recent philanthropy
will make us forget that last Christmas he suspended subsidized medical
benefits for Hanesbrands retirees. Or, perhaps he thinks that praise from a
Chamber CEO will deflect attention away from the fact that he has saddled
taxpayers with the cost of training and salary compensation for the thousands of
workers he laid off.
And maybe he hopes that having his name attached to a new arts complex will
keep the media focused on something other than his moving 75% of his
workforce out of America, and paying slave wages to foreigners in order to increase
company profits.
Richard Noll is an example of how American CEOs can take advantage of NAFTA
and CAFTA, while abusing the spirit of the Federal Trade Adjustment
Assistance Act, and continuing to rake in hefty salaries and bonuses – in his case,
$8.5 million dollars.
For Don Flow and Gayle Anderson to defend Hanesbrands, calls into question
their own commitment to the working class in North Carolina who drives our
economy.
Certainly Hanesbrands pays a large chunk of change in dues to belong to the
Chamber, but that’s no reason for Anderson to ignore Noll’s misdeeds.
Flow, meanwhile, might claim that he is uniquely qualified to understand
the nuances of business and economic development. After all, he helped to
recruit Dell to our area. But the Dell deal was nothing more than corporate
extortion. While the State of Virginia offered a mere $30 million in perks to
attract Dell, North Carolina’s package cost us taxpayers ten times more than
that. And it’s a perk package that allows Dell to lay off up to 40% of its
workforce in Forsyth and still hold on to $330 million dollars of our money. No
wonder gubernatorial candidate and former Justice Robert Orr says the Dell deal
was illegal and bad for the Triad.
Flow and Anderson are part of an inner circle in the Twin City area who
think that no one but them understands what our community needs. But by
defending the likes of Richard Noll and Hanesbrands, they are helping to destroy a
class of people who made this community great. So why did AnderFlow go to
such trouble to pen an editorial in defense of corporate greed? Perhaps
because the inner circle protects the inner circle, and because what those people
fear most is anyone who shines a light on the truths about wheeling and
dealing in the Triad.
When you play with other people’s money and lives, it’s easy to disregard
the effect your decisions have on those other people. It’s kind of like
John McCain saying he understands the effects of war on the ground when all he
did was drop bombs from 35,000 feet in the air. Unfortunately many
Winston-Salem leaders are too detached from what regular folk need, and too high up
in the air to appreciate the damage their decisions are doing on the ground.
Instead of criticizing the media and defending greedy CEOs, Flow and
Anderson should think about how they might better serve the economic needs of
citizens.
They can start by formally censuring Richard Noll for sending 14,000 jobs
overseas, and request that he bring those jobs back home. They can also
renounce the use of industry incentives as a way of attracting new business.
(Gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue told me that if elected, she would lobby
the National Governors Association to place a moratorium on all incentives.
That’s because incentives do not create jobs, they merely shift jobs from
one state to another). And the City’s inner circle should stop circling the
wagons every time someone points out their mistakes.
Folks like Scott Sexton, Bob Orr, Bev Perdue, and myself sympathize with
laid-off workers. Don Flow, Gayle Anderson, and the inner circle sympathize
with CEOs who do the laying off.
Until and unless that inner circle understands the difference between those
two philosophies, they will keep paying tribute to corporate pirates, while
the rest of us keep paying for their mistakes.
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