THE Right Not to Remain Silent

Last week Benjamin Moore laid off 50 employees bringing to 60 the total number rif’ed by Montvale in the last two-months, likely portending weak demand for coatings in the opinion of Benjamin Moore CEO Dan Calkins.

A view which would align Calkins with Hiedi Petz, the chief executive at Sherwin-Williams who projects that same outcome.   

The cuts were made across multiple departments with National Accounts and the New Entrepreneur Program among the highest profile eliminated, along with the field marketing teams and recruiting department. 

That last one no surprise considering the circumstances. 

THE remaining cuts came from Montvale and the field, representing as much as 5% of the company’s workforce.  Having felt Dan’s knife across my own throat once, I commiserate with those impacted by this action including some likely reading now. 

Halfway through a 12-month engagement with Moore the pandemic hit and Calkins made drastic cuts to the staff in Montvale.  Throwing me out with that bathwater, I was shocked by my sudden unemployment and recall feeling disoriented as many of you must now feel.

We were all set aside by the same unethical construct, one which allows a company owned by the nation’s fifth wealthiest person to execute mass layoffs with impunity as if adding to their wealth was a constitutional right.      

Bitter at the circumstances of my unemployment I availed myself of the one right I had, though that exercise did not get me my job back or cover the increased cost of healthcare on COBRA.

An experience which exposed the First Amendment as a paper tiger, a right which allowed venting but served no other purpose.

That's Not Right

In national elections held earlier this month Italians voted on a slate of referendums, changes to their constitution brought forth by citizen action to expand individual rights over the rights of corporations. 

Italy is among the more than half of all nations whose citizens can access the ballot directly using referendums, allowing more frequent updates to constitutions in a way which would have impressed Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. 

Author of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson believed constitutions should be fluid, molded to the will of each generation.  “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”     

Despite Jefferson’s warning the US Constitution has failed to kept up, with its last change coming more than 30-years ago and that one took more than 200-years to pass!

Reading the Italian referendums over the shoulder of my native to that land fiancéeic I realized Jefferson was right about constitutional fluidity and the risks inherent in our failure to maintain the laws.

Though that did not make Jefferson right about everything.    

More than just choosing from blue or red slates Italians make real world decisions with thier elections, such as this year's second ballot initiative which asked if an employee laid off with less than 10-years of service should be entitled to receive 10-months of severance? 

As opposed to the current six.

Or if employees with more than 10-years of service should be receive 14-months’ severance if terminated for any reason; as opposed to the current 10?

THE initiatives passed with more than 80% of the vote, granting rights far more valuable than my freedom to tell #DanCalkins that I didn't appreciate getting fired. 

Those rights protect Italian citizens from corporate malfeasance, which to be clear I am not accusing Benjamin Moore or Dan Calkins of engaging in.  In my dealings with Dan we personally negotiated my employment contracts and I witnessed him make critical decisions, in all cases I found him to be both ethical and fair.

Sentiments parroted by Benjamin Moore employees I heard from who were impacted by this action.

But while Dan remains my favorite foil it’s the system I deride, one which allows the unconscionable greed of a few to infringe on rights of so many.  

But what if when Dan called to say that your job was eliminated the law allowed you to declare whether you wanted to be treated as an American citizen or an Italian one; how many of those 60 would have raised the Stars and Stripes?    

Choosing Italian citizenship–or a citizenship of most European countries–those 60 people would have received two-month notice last week that their job was to be eliminate, instead of the American-style shitcanning that they got.  When those two-months were expired they’d receive severance well in excess of the American standard; while maintaining their healthcare coverage.

Rights enshrined for every Italian, though at least we’ve got the right to complain about it. 

Lmk what you think of this topics like this here.