Take the lessons learned from AA and make your company better. Just because Charney is a little nutty doesn't mean the entire company/model/approach is bad. In fact I think the business world could use more people like Charney with an open mind and free (if not overly-sexual) spirit.
You said yourself that AA workers could not get the same money anywhere else... surely you don't think it's acceptable for Charney to ask his employees for sex in a situation where (according to you) he has so much power?
In general, I think good/legal vs. bad/illegal behavior is not just a simple sum of its parts where, say, 3 good deeds outweigh 1 rotten deed by 2. After all, when your neighbor turns out to be a child predator, are you going to say, oh well, that's ok because he's been a good church-going fella for the past 30 years?
If your high-school calculus teacher turns out to be a child predator, that doesn't invalidate everything you learned about calculus.
Charney doesn't deny taking part in any of the activities described in the article.
How is it an allegation when the guy himself admits it was true?
And sorry but your argument is typical straw-man. Of course I don't claim that all apparel ever manufactured disappears out of existence now that we found out about AA's lack of ethics. What's the point of assigning me a clearly retarded point of view just so you can refute it?
Obviously I don't think that it would invalidate an entire branch of mathematics if I found out that my calculus teacher was a pedophile. However, I would strongly object to an article profiling a him as ethical and using him as an example for others to follow, which is what the original post is doing.
Nobody here cares about American Apparel. In the context of news.yc, this article is only interesting in what lessons it might hold for other entrepreneurs. As has been said before, there are undoubtedly positive lessons and cautionary lessons.
FTA: >Charney says all three women did substandard work and gave no indication before they left that they had felt harassed. Charney says he never engaged in any of the acts of which he is accused.
So 8 paragraphs in, the first time mentioning his "sexual crimes" in workplace culture, where it ALSO mentions his response, is a flat out denial. Where does he say he did this?
A good deed doesn't undo an evil deed, surely - but the opposite isn't true. All the bad deeds in the world doesn't make your good deeds less good.
It reminds me (as your comment did) of my basic premise on journalism over the last 20 years - which is that the business section is full of complete hosebags who've demolished the entire industry in the name of PR and capitalism.
Though I agree with you about the business press. That's a whole other problem (much related to what I just said).
I've since grown completely accustomed to it, and now don't even notice it, except when I go back to Europe.
'But BusinessWeek spoke with seven former workers who say they were offended by what they called a highly sexual atmosphere at American Apparel. They told stories of senior managers who pursued sexual relationships with less senior colleagues and rewarded their favorites with promotions, company cars, and apartments. "It was a company built on lechery," says a former stock person. "I thought it was a male contemporary perspective on feminism, but it turns out to be just a gimmick," says another ex-employee. And another: "I made sure to stay away from the store when I knew [Charney] was coming into town. It's not one person -- he's aiming for all women.'
I generally have little patience with these kinds of feel-good PR-ish stories.