Asbestos and Ice Cream

Before the age of the internet–well, before age of the tele­vi­sion, how com­pa­nies treated their employ­ees was largely a mat­ter between the employee and the company.

I recently heard a BBC radio pro­gram about a young woman named Nel­lie Ker­shaw who, in the 1920’s suf­fered the first doc­u­mented case of asbestos poi­son­ing while work­ing at Turner Broth­ers Asbestos in Man­ches­ter, UK.

Unable to work, Nel­lie cor­re­sponded with Turner Broth­ers request­ing sick­ness ben­e­fits, she asked:

“What are you going to do about my case? I have been home 9 weeks now and have not received a penny — I think it’s time that there was some­thing from you as the National Health refuses to pay me any­thing. I am need­ing nour­ish­ment and the money, I should have had 9 weeks wages now through no fault of my own.”

Nel­lie was flat-out refused any form of com­pen­sa­tion because asbestos poi­son­ing was not a rec­og­nized occu­pa­tional dis­ease at that time. Nel­lie died in her early 30’s and was buried in an unmarked grave because when Nellie’s hus­band asked Turner Broth­ers for help in pay­ing for funeral arrange­ments, they again refused to pro­vide any form of compensation.

His­tory only remem­bers Nel­lie Ker­shaw because her case led to the imple­men­ta­tion of the first asbestos indus­try reg­u­la­tions in 1931.

Fast for­ward just shy of 100 years. Chapman’s Ice Cream fac­tory in Mark­dale Ontario is destroyed by fire. The fac­tory had been in the town for 35 years. At the time of the fire Mark­dale had a pop­u­la­tion of 1400, and 350 of it’s res­i­dents worked at the factory.

Shortly after the fire, Chapman’s own­ers David and Penny Chap­man announced that the com­pany would pay salaried employ­ees in full for one year, hourly employ­ees for four months – and he would “take care of” them beyond that.

This deci­sion was con­sis­tent with every­thing Chapman’s stood for as a com­pany. It had long sup­ported the com­mu­nity at a grass­roots level–from sup­port­ing local base­ball teams to donat­ing large sums to the local hospital.

So I find myself stay­ing at a cot­tage near Mark­dale nearly a year after the fire. On a ride up with a friend who has just moved from Toronto to a town near Mark­dale, my hus­band was bemoan­ing the poor (cor­po­rate type) ice cream avail­able in the region.

Our friend staunchly defended Chapman’s by telling the story of the fire and how Chapman’s stood up for its employ­ees and for the town it is part of. Our friend said “you’ll never hear any­one in town say any­thing bad about Chapmans.”

I hap­pened to take the kids for a scoop of the cold stuff at Chilli Willi’s Ice Cream Par­lour near Markdale.This par­tic­u­lar par­lour had to close its doors early when Chapman’s clo­sure meant ice cream short­ages. The owner would not carry another sup­plier. She decided to wait until Chapman’s was back up and run­ning. Here, I heair a young man say how he likes the choco­late ice cream in the par­lour bet­ter than the Chapman’s ice cream he gets at home. I think “this guy knows his Chapman’s.”

Not only does this story get lots of play in the local ice cream par­lour and in and around Mark­dale, but the Wash­ing­ton Post wrote about the case as an exam­ple of exem­plary cor­po­rate social responsibility.

Against this back­ground of cyn­i­cism about busi­ness — some­times deserved — David and Penny Chap­man stand out. After the fire, they could have called it a career, tak­ing their insur­ance money and retir­ing to a warmer cli­mate. Instead they did some­thing all too rare in today’s cor­po­rate cul­ture — they thought of others.

Ice cream is a feel-good prod­uct; it puts smiles on children’s faces. And Chapman’s car­ried that feel-good-factor for­ward by sup­port­ing the folks who worked hard to make Chapman’s a success.

Peo­ple in Mark­dale are loyal to Chapman’s ice cream. It’s prac­ti­cally the only brand you’ll see in gen­eral stores in the area. And, while I’m gen­er­ally resis­tant to ‘big cor­po­rate’ enti­ties like Chapman’s and the farm­ing prac­tices they employ, I have to say, the impact of Chapman’s ges­ture to employ­ees put the sprin­kles on top of their brand.

Chapman’s lever­aged their role as a beloved Cana­dian orga­ni­za­tion in the fol­low­ing ad where they thank Canada for sup­port­ing them while they were rebuild­ing their plant.

Chapman’s has lever­aged its “when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people tale. But they do it with­out being exploitive. They have turned a tragedy into a tri­umph for their brand, for their employ­ees, for the town, and finally, for Canada, who cheers on the suc­cess of the ice cream brand because it’s nice, just like we are.

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