Johnson Co. couple buys out employer, keeps jobs in Kentucky

[kentuck]

<snip>
HAGER HILL — Irene and David Morris could have packed up and taken jobs elsewhere, maybe back home in Ohio or Michigan, when the owner of the manufacturing company retired and sold out. If that had happened, Atlantic India Rubber Co. grommets and parts might be made in China now.

But the Morrises — working as manager and executive — decided they'd poured nearly 10 years of their life into building the factory in Johnson County.

They cared about their employees, all hired locally when the 92-year-old company moved from Illinois and Ohio in 2003. They cared that the rubber parts used on Harley Davidson motorcycles and Arctic Cat snowmobiles and Boeing jets are made in the U.S.A. They wanted to save their jobs. And ultimately, Irene Morris said, the company survived "one of the toughest years ever" for manufacturers, so "we knew the business was sound."

So the couple, whose children are grown and whose only debt was a mortgage and a car loan, borrowed nearly $1.3 million to buy out their employer last summer.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/29/1615363/johnson-co-couple-buys-out-employer.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz1CTnw5Xfx

[somone]

1. Great story

[Fumesucker]

2. K&R, thanks for posting..

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. GREAT story!

Now, all we need are a lot more couples like them.

Recommended.

[Hannah Bell]

4. wow. wish they'd let some of the other employees in on the deal, though.

[qazplm]

5. without them those employees wouldn't have a job

so I think they've done their part.

[Hannah Bell]

7. i wish people would stop acting like it was a big fucking favor for anyone to have a job.

an american couple bought the business to make a profit. great. but they didn't buy it to give the others jobs or operate it as a charity, they bought it because they thought they could make a profit & pay back the million they borrowed -- plus.

if something doesn't go right, they're in hock for a million & the jobs will go anyway.

and if they need to sweat the employees, or fire them, to pay the loan -- they will.

i stated that i thought it would have been better if the employees had bought it.

[qazplm]

9. they took on 1.3 million dollars in debt

so yeah it is a big fucking favor that they did that so that all of those folks wouldn't be out on the street in this job market.

And oh by the way, there was nothing stopping the employees from pooling their resources and buying it.

You didn't say it would have been better if the employees bought, you said you wish they'd have brought in the employees as if they have some obligation to do so.

And if "something doesn't go right" those jobs will go away regardless of whether or not the employees are "brought in."

[Hannah Bell]

10. uh, no, it wasn't a big fucking favor. they bought it because they thought they could profit,

what don't you get?

if something goes wrong in an enterprise with a heavy debt load, it's harder to correct than one with a lower debt load. and a lower debt load is possible when a larger number of people own the business.

you say "nothing prevented" as though you knew the full story. the couple were manager-execs, i.e. they may have set up the deal before the average joe working at the company even knew it was going to be sold.

i made a very simple comment: i wish all the employees had bought the business.

for that sin, i get two rations of crap.

can't speak a goddamn word that even *implies* a criticism of the capitalist class without knee-jerk crap.

[qazplm]

15. and you know the full story?

You don't know anymore than I do and you've decided they didn't give a thought to the people who work for them now.

Never mind the actual words in the article that suggest otherwise.

Never mind that you have no info that the workers could have afforded to buy the business.

Never mind the fact that if they didn't buy the business those people would all be unemployed.

[Hannah Bell]

16. no, i don't. nor did i purport to. i made a very simple & not particularly judgmental comment,

i wish they had let the other employees in on the deal.

for which you came after me with an axe.

totally unwarranted.

i will repeat again: they bought the business to make a profit, not to give people jobs.

giving someone a job is not a "favor". those who offer jobs expect to profit -- to make more money than they pay out to the worker.

PERIOD, END OF STORY.

[eilen]

18. I agree Hannah Bell

While it was very "nice" they preserved jobs in the community, it would have been nicer if they had organized the workers together and put forth a proposal for the workers to "buy in" and be a worker owned company. Then I would consider them heroes as they would be doing a selfless act.

It is true that time may have been of the essence to bring the offer to the sellers before other buyers (hedge funds etc) got wind. But still, it would be even cooler if the workers owned it and hired the current owners to run while the workers served as the board of directors.

[JanMichael]

22. Thank you. I thought the exact same thing reading this

but we have become such sheep in this country that we see "they gave them jobs!" as the greatest thing on earth. It's disgusting.

[Starry Messenger]

20. Are you related to the Morrises?

Geeze dude, step off.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. you took the words right outta my fingers n/t

[Hannah Bell]

11. why isn't the capital protection league coming after you then?

i made what i thought was an innocuous comment & get a ration of shit.

people trying to sell the idea that the couple took out a million dollar loan as a favor to the workers so they could keep their jobs, not because they thought they'd be able to profit.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. I dunno, Hannah. Maybe they thought I was agreein' with the other guy?

And they'll come after me eventually. They always do. :evilgrin:


But seriously, most people, even a lot of liberals and progressives, don't get it.

The couple who bought the company were an executive and a manager, so now they've moved up a notch to owners. Instead of selling their labor to someone else, they will become buyers of someone else's labor, and sellers of the products of that labor. And they will take their cut. Most Americans think that's the natural way. . . and indeed the ONLY way.

Wage slavery is still slavery.




As I wrote in another thread a day or so ago:

Competition = winners & losers.

Cooperation = winners & more winners.


TG, TT

[Kat45]

17. I have always preferred cooperation to competition.

And it pisses me off it isn't the way things are done.

[underpants]

8. Love this story

:patriot:

[shanti]

12. what a vision

they're probably not making half of what they could make if they outsourced, but it's gratifying to see that there are still some people that have some integrity, pride and who are not greedy. greed has ruined so many people.

i would love to see this happen as a grassroots movement here in the u.s. they did it in argentina.

[OneGrassRoot]

19. Exactly. I couldn't agree more. K&R to OP! :) n/t

[blondeatlast]

13. "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" queued up on the iPod just as I clicked

this thread--the very moment!

THAT'S the America I remember. Thank you, Morrises! :patriot:

[1776Forever]

21. Wow what a story! We will never know how much their chose affected the future of so many! n/t

K&R

:woohoo:

[Modern_Matthew]

23. I live in Johnson County...

We've lost 2 to 3 restaurants, a 70+ year old furniture store, and have had many layoffs from some of the retail chain stores this past year or so.

This is excellent news. Being unemployed myself, I would be proud to work there. Unfortunately, I didn't even know they existed until a short time ago.