Aaron Feuerstein dies at 95, paid idled workers after mill fire
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By Ross Kerber
BOSTON (Reuters) - Former Boston-area millowner Aaron Feuerstein, who gained fame for paying workers idled after a fire in December 1995, has died at the age of 95, his son Daniel Feuerstein said on Thursday.
Feuerstein gained national fame for continuing to pay 1,400 workers displaced from the Malden Mills factory in Lawrence, Mass., known for its Polartec fleece fabric.
"For my father, the most important stakeholders were his factory workers," said Daniel Feuerstein, adding that his father died of complications after a fall at home in Brookline, Mass. last week.
Feuerstein rebuilt the factory north of Boston with insurance money but eventually lost control of the business founded by his grandfather, which once employed about 3,000 people. Polartec is now a brand of Milliken & Co.
Yet the blunt-spoken Feuerstein became an icon at a time when many business leaders were celebrated for laying off workers and cutting costs to maximize profits.
Just after the fire Feuerstein said, "I'm not throwing 3,000 people out of work two weeks before Christmas," a Malden Mills executive once told the Boston Globe newspaper.
Ultimately Feuerstein paid wages to all 1,400 workers displaced by the fire for 90 days and extended their health benefits. Many were immigrants from Lawrence and the nearby city of Lowell, Mass.
"His workers were his people, his community," said Daniel Feuerstein.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
