# Cantor Fitzgerald widows on 20/20 **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 11, 2001, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823 "2001-10-11T17:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![random1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@random1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random1)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2001, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/21 "2001-10-12T23:06:01Z")
just to clarify The company is not holding back checks. As I understand it he has paid the employees for the time they were alive, he has just said that he is not going to continue to pay their salaries now that they are deceased. While I feel for the women I saw on the show, having lost loved ones and all, I just thought they came off as being overly concerned with getting their husbands paychecks. At least in my opinion they seemed to think they were owed that because they had lost someone in the tragedy. I agree with the people who have called out 20/20 as being sensationalists, it seemed like they were really trying hard to stir up some controversy. The ceo had apparently already had plans in place to do something for the families, setting aside 25% of future profits, 20/20 seemed like they were sort of doing a hatchet job on the ceo by not saying anything about that till the very end of the segment. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2001, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/22 "2001-10-13T03:29:00Z")
> [@](#): > > And since I didn’t see last night’s 20/20, I can’t comment on it directly You don’t really need to. _60 Minutes_ has been a farce of carefully edited sensationalism for over 20 years and they are the _best_ of this breed of schlock. Basically, if it appears on one of these infotainment shows masking as “investigative news” it requires a second (or third) look. (Or, to save time, just ignore these presentations and go enough news sources to counter-balance any one group’s sensationalism and slant.) ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/23 "2001-10-13T04:22:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cartooniverse \* > This puts me in mind of the factory owner in Massachusettes a few years ago. They made Polartec clothing out of soda bottles. The factory burned down, and he lost something like 4 out of 5 cruxial buildings. He called the employees and families together, told them all that NOBODY would miss a week’s pay or health benefit. That he would rebuild and re-hire everyone. Just bear with him, he would move as fast as he could. > > And, he did. > > Damned if I can’t find the right words to use on Google to get to the site. Help??? ☹ The company was Malden Mills, and the owner was Alan Fuerstein, or something similar. He was a graduate of my high school and gave a speech at our school’s National Honor Society convocation and awards ceremony shortly after the event. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2001, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/24 "2001-10-13T23:52:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pepsigirl \* > **He was crying to Connie Chung that he couldn’t continue to pay dead employees or he would go bankrupt.** As he would. He can’t pay people who no longer exist for work they’re not doing. Would that be fair to other CF employees whose offices weren’t in the WTC? They’re going to have a helluvan increase in workload for the forseeable future. Or are you suggesting that they forgo overtime pay, maybe even take a pay cut, out of the goodness of their hearts? \*\* > [@](#): > > He told the spouses, “we will pay your insurance”, than told them that their insurance was going to be cancelled.\*\* Which form of insurance? Perhaps he meant that he would pay out the **life** insurance for the deceased employees, but had to cancel their **health** insurance because they were no longer employees. \*\* > [@](#): > > It was going to bankrupt him to pay them but now he is going to pay their insurance for 10 years and give them 25% profit sharing? That doesn’t make any sense.\*\* _different post_\*\* > [@](#): > > For instance, where my husband works; they had in writing that they would not be laid off until at least 2006. Well he is being laid off next week. Why do you ask??? Because since terrorists slammed their airplanes into the side of buildings it is considered an act of war and they don’t have to honor their contracts.\*\* Again, would it have made sense to have kept paying insurance for people who were deceased? Profit sharing I can’t comment on, because I don’t know the details of the deceased employees’ contracts. As far as your husband’s contract, was there a clause about acts of war negating the other terms? If so, I deeply sympathize, but contracts are tricky things. A lot of people, even if they do read before signing, think, “Oh, that’ll never happen,” and then it does. \*\* > [@](#): > > He just seems like slime and did not even appear to be really be greaving for anybody, not even his brother that he had lost. It all looked like a show.\*\* How do you know what his grief should look like? Want him to wallow in it, so he’s not in a state to regroup at all? \*\* > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Cartooniverse_ > This puts me in mind of the factory owner in Massachusettes a few years ago. They made Polartec clothing out of soda bottles. The factory burned down, and he lost something like 4 out of 5 cruxial buildings. He called the employees and families together, told them all that NOBODY would miss a week’s pay or health benefit. That he would rebuild and re-hire everyone. Just bear with him, he would move as fast as he could.\*\* So he still **had** employees to rehire. **Totally different.** I don’t think it’s fair to compare this to other situations, like Malden Mills or anything else. There has **never** been a situation like this. It puts the Triangle Shirtwaist fire on the same level with a termite infestation\*. It’s simply not possible to accomodate everyone’s needs and still maintain the business. It might not be possible to accomodate everyone’s needs at all. \*not belittling the victims of Triangle Shirtwaist, or their families; just using perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/25 "2001-10-14T00:14:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pepsigirl \* > **He was crying to Connie Chung that he couldn’t continue to pay dead employees or he would go bankrupt.** As he would. He can’t pay people who no longer exist for work they’re not doing. Would that be fair to other CF employees whose offices weren’t in the WTC? They’re going to have a helluvan increase in workload for the forseeable future. Or are you suggesting that they forgo overtime pay, maybe even take a pay cut, out of the goodness of their hearts? \*\* > [@](#): > > He told the spouses, “we will pay your insurance”, than told them that their insurance was going to be cancelled.\*\* Which form of insurance? Perhaps he meant that he would pay out the **life** insurance for the deceased employees, but had to cancel their **health** insurance because they were no longer employees. \*\* > [@](#): > > It was going to bankrupt him to pay them but now he is going to pay their insurance for 10 years and give them 25% profit sharing? That doesn’t make any sense.\*\* _different post_\*\* > [@](#): > > For instance, where my husband works; they had in writing that they would not be laid off until at least 2006. Well he is being laid off next week. Why do you ask??? Because since terrorists slammed their airplanes into the side of buildings it is considered an act of war and they don’t have to honor their contracts.\*\* Again, would it have made sense to have kept paying insurance for people who were deceased? Profit sharing I can’t comment on, because I don’t know the details of the deceased employees’ contracts. As far as your husband’s contract, was there a clause about acts of war negating the other terms? If so, I deeply sympathize, but contracts are tricky things. A lot of people, even if they do read before signing, think, “Oh, that’ll never happen,” and then it does. \*\* > [@](#): > > He just seems like slime and did not even appear to be really be greaving for anybody, not even his brother that he had lost. It all looked like a show.\*\* How do you know what his grief should look like? Want him to wallow in it, so he’s not in a state to regroup at all? \*\* > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Cartooniverse_ > This puts me in mind of the factory owner in Massachusettes a few years ago. They made Polartec clothing out of soda bottles. The factory burned down, and he lost something like 4 out of 5 cruxial buildings. He called the employees and families together, told them all that NOBODY would miss a week’s pay or health benefit. That he would rebuild and re-hire everyone. Just bear with him, he would move as fast as he could.\*\* So he still **had** employees to rehire. **Totally different.** I don’t think it’s fair to compare this to other situations, like Malden Mills or anything else. There has **never** been a situation like this. It puts the Triangle Shirtwaist fire on the same level with a termite infestation\*. It’s simply not possible to accomodate everyone’s needs and still maintain the business. It might not be possible to accomodate everyone’s needs at all. \*not belittling the victims of Triangle Shirtwaist, or their families; just using perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823/26 "2001-10-14T09:12:55Z")
Sorry 'bout the double post! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cantor-fitzgerald-widows-on-20-20/86823.md?page=1)