The Common Good Forum, December 1, 2010

Jeno F. Paulucci was the recipient of the Ernst & Young Lifetime Achievement Award as a leading civic activist, philanthropist and outstanding entrepreneur over the past 20 years. We asked him to reflect on his years creating good, union jobs.

Let it be said that those in business have an obligation to their area, their state, their nation and also to the people who they employ to make this a better life for everyone.

There is much dialogue concerning the rich person and the middle class.  I want to sort of speak out and tell you how I see it.

The so-called rich person used to be someone back in the depression days with $100,000.  This person would have been considered comfortably rich.  Then it became $1,000,000.

Today, the way the dollar is going and the cost of living is going up, you damn near have to have $10,000,000 to be considered comfortably rich -- soon it will be $100,000,000.

In fact I would not be opposed to a surtax on an individual's annual earned income of $2,000,000 or more.

I also, however, don't condemn those who have some money and who use that money to help the middle class person by growing their business. Remember that the middle class person is normally helped with a job and the income and the security and the family stability that come with having a steady job, created by the entrepreneur or the corporations.

Let me speak for myself.  During my 92 years - I started employing people in the 1940's, so now have some 65 years creating jobs -  I worked with all types of unions worldwide, never having one day of strike or a lock out in those 65 years by being fair with my employees, creating jobs or taking over companies that were failing and saving those jobs.  As a result, I made a little money, especially now with my Michelina's Frozen Entrees.

Should I be condemned for that?  No, because you want to remember that about half of those people that I helped get jobs were mentally impaired or physically impaired. I received a national award for employing the handicapped when 51% of our people in Minnesota, in 1972 I believe it was, were handicapped.  And, they were all unionized.

We have to help the middle class and we have to help the people who employ others who create jobs.  Without those people creating jobs, there is no middle class -- it's all the poorer class.  Think about it.

And one more point, over these 92 years I have either created or saved from ailing companies over 10,000 jobs worldwide and most of those 10,000 exist today. Of those jobs, most were unionized.  That's what an entrepreneur can do if makes a little money once in a while; i.e., they can employ people with jobs -- the most valuable commodity on earth.