THE LAWRENCE SUMMERS MEMORIAL AWARD*

The September 2000 Lawrence Summers Memorial Award* goes to Maurice Taylor, Jr., CEO of Titan International, a Quincy, Illinois manufacturer of wheels and tires for off-highway equipment. Workers represented by the United Steelworkers of America have been on strike at Titan for more than two years. Titan has struggled to maintain production by use of "replacement" workers - called "scabs" by the union.

According to the steelworkers union, in August and September, "CEO Morry Taylor ran around Titan plants in Des Moines and Natchez, Mississippi personally handing out hundreds of $2.00 bills to strikebreakers in partial payment for services rendered."

Strange behavior, "but ," asked one Titan striker, "what can you expect from a guy who's been running around saying that he's blown nearly a hundred million dollars of shareholder's money by illegally forcing two unfair labor practice strikes because a fair contract would put Titan out of business?"

Titan did not respond to requests for comment.

*In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist and current Secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?" Summers wrote. "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City." Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic.