Lakshmi Mittal, one of the world's richest men, controlling the largest steel company in the world (Arcelor-Mittal), is demonstrating how he got where he is today: by dismantling profitable plants in Lackawanna, NY and Hennepin, Ill., and shipping the equipment to a new plant in Mexico. Since all the employees of the still profitable American plants will lose their jobs, the corporation's statement on responsibility to the community has an ironic ring.
"Through the leadership of Mr. (Lakshmi N.)
Mittal
, ArcelorMittal contributes significantly to the local communities in which the Company operates."
Actually, ArcelorMittal may claim that the Lackawanna plant is unprofitable: the corporation used transfer pricing to its wholly-owned subsidiaries to show losses for the last several years, enabling it to avoid paying New York State's corporate income tax.
The unionized employees, who had agreed to wage givebacks and changes in work rules to keep the plant open, and the municipality, which had granted tax abatements for the same purpose, have attempted to find purchasers for it, so that workers can keep their jobs. So far Mittal has shown no interest in selling it, however. It appears that it would prefer to gut the plant, strand the workers, and prevent it from competing with Arcelor-Mittal.
Imperialists take note: Mittal grew up in a house with earthen floors, in an India bled white by the British Empire, and then kept down for the next century. Now Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) Mittal owns the UK's most expensive mansion, which he floored with marble from the same quarries used to adorn the Taj Mahal.
Mittal's emergence is a kind of reverse imperialism, and his dismantling of the Lackawanna and Hennepin plants could be seen as pay back to imperialist exploiters--doing them one better. He's treating Americans like peons--the way Britons dealt with Indians. His business behavior can also be seen as a fulfillment of his Bania caste dharma: extract profits wherever possible, and pay off the law if necessary. Maximum profits are his highest religious obligation.
An Indian aphorism has Bania businessmen keeping three sets of books: one for the government; one for his partners, and one set only for himself and God.
So, when the US is trying to stimulate the economy, and keep US jobs, global corporations like Arcelor-Mittal are dismantling efficient and profitable manufacturing plants and slashing jobs. They're providing a reverse stimulus.
This is a consequence of globalization and "free trade," which leaves the US with no tools to defend itself and no laws to force a company to sell, or to prevent it from dismantling its plant, even though it had received a bundle of tax concessions to keep it open. There are no adequate American legal provisions protecting communities dependent on a plant like Lackawanna's.(There are protections in the EU.)
Here is where worker-activism is called for: the workers should occupy the plants and refuse to leave until Arcelor-Mittal agrees to stop dismantling them and sell to the highest bidder.
How long will it take before Americans realize that it isn't government that tyrannizes them, but corporations? Corporations like Arcelor-Mittal have too much power. To a corporation your interests are less important than a slave's to a slave-owner; you are expendable. In fact, the more expendable it can make you, the better for the corporation: it can pay you less. And it can abandon you--at no cost.
It doesn't have to be this way. It is ironic that Lakshmi Mittal is from a former colonial "dependency," but his corporate actions should provide a wake up call. Roman Senators didn't have to end up with all the wealth and power, enabling them to sell out the Empire to the Goths, and today's super-rich don't have to end up with all the wealth, either--unless we let them.
Romans who survived the 5th Century accepted slavery or serfdom as the price for survival; I hope Americans are different. But in order for us to prevent our pauperization, Americans are going to have to act, and to pursue radical changes, like holding corporations accountable for their actions, and insuring that communities and employees come first--yes, before bond and stockholders.
At very least, the nation, state, municipality and employees should have the right to purchase their plant when it is to be closed down. Of course Lakshmi Mittal would oppose this--he wants to reduce competition, not increase it, but why should Americans passively allow him to do that?
It's time for radical responses to outrageous corporate actions.
