The true spirit of giving!

One of the nicest stories I’ve heard during this holiday season is about a family owned business called Peer Bearing just outside of Chicago, Illinois. The company, run for three generations by the same family, was recently sold to a Swedish company for over 6 million dollars. Rather than greedily hide the money away for self gain, the CEO and his family decided to share the wealth with all his employees. The workers were called into the cafeteria for an announcement of the sale of the company, which worried many employees. During the meeting the workers were given envelopes with a card of thanks as well as a bonus check. This act of good will awarded some employees as much as $100, 000 (others received $35,000 and $10,000, for example) depending on the employee’s amount of time at the company. As you can imagine, the employees were stunned, pleasantly surprised at the huge checks they were looking at! The family said they felt a duty to share the money with their employees because the workers are the driving force behind their business. The employees said they have always been treated like extended family and were amazed at the size of their bonuses. And, further good news, the Swedish company that bought Peer Bearing has agreed to keep all workers at the plant.

During this time of greedy CEOs pilfering the funds of their company workers and spending excessively while their own employees are struggling with home foreclosures, its nice to see an example of the beautiful human spirit that we can aspire to. I know for many of us now, bonuses at Christmas, turkeys at Thanksgiving and other workplace gifts are a thing of the past. The days of holiday bonuses and company picnics have gone the way of the dinosaur. So, I say THREE CHEERS to the Spungen family of Peer Bearing for being a shining example of true giving and, hopefully, inspiring other companies to take a look at how they treat their workers.