Video interview w/CEO of Gibson Guitar

[Don McClellan]

This is important to all of us, well worth watching and you can find more info if you look.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/4887.html

[Don McClellan]

Bump.

[Jerry Roller]

This just does not seem like America to me!! What can we do about it?
Jerry

[Erv Niehaus]

Jerry,
Just keep it in mind the next time you go and vote.

[David Mason]

This has been covered in depth.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=211803

It interested me because I do some work for lawyers, boring trusts & wills writing... a number of people were surprised by Henry Juszkiewicz's immediate espousal of libertarian slogans and ideals, and his seeming run towards the shelter of talk-radio commentators. And his claim to not know what the case was about - it was filed in open court in June - and his immediate squalling that he doesn't have a court to tell the "truth" in - he will, once the evidence is processed.

The reporters alerted by Henry Juszkiewicz's actions began looking into it, and there appears to be quite a solid case against Gibson, years of paperwork "accidents" and "mistakes" and some unfortunate (for them) e-mails. They sent an employee to Madagascar to buy wood, he reported back that there was no legal way to buy wood but there was a source for "gray-market" wood, then Gibson bought some wood from that source - oops, erase your hard drives, kids!

For the lawyers I work for, this is like Disneyland: this one's got them building the bleachers and popping the popcorn. I was up there last week and they pulled up all the open-court warrants and affidavits (the same stuff Gibson has). Lexis-Nexis is a scary search engine....

Their big question is, why NOW? What's gotten into Henry, what has Gibson got to hide? A very early balloon that was floated was the usual, “oh these forms are so confusing, it's just a minor clerical error, new employee checked the wrong box” kind of thing. And if they'd stuck with that, they might have gotten an ordinary response – MIGHT have - just paid some fines and gone back to business as usual, which is trying to buy valuable wood out of unstable third-world countries with shifting governments and (no doubt) any number of people who are happy to hand you any kind of form or “bill of lading” or whatever you WANT, claiming that everything's legal, as long as you pay them a big enough “customs fee” or “export tax” or whatever you want to call that – hey, nobody's saying that it's easy.

And there is no doubt that the Indian government is trying to promote their own industry and workers by only exporting semi-finished fingerboards. And Gibson hires American workers... but those have absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Gibson LIED about what was in the boxes they were importing, fraudulently (keep an eye on this word) claiming to be importing finished fingerboards when they were importing raw wood – from somewhere. If their own bills of lading were to be believed, they were actually helping those Indian workers. And Henry Juszkiewicz even said that he was advised “privately” by a customs agent that if he had just had the first fingerboards made in Madagascar, there would have been no problem – which is a really bizarre conflation of three or four completely disconnected things. There IS no Madagascar fingerboard manufacturing industry, and it's India that is trying to export more finished work. (?)

Everybody knows (I hope you do) that if you get pulled over by a cop for speeding or a bad taillight, you don't jump out of the car and spit on him and wave your fists in his face and start yelling about tyranny – things won't go well for you. And now Gibson in the person of Henry Juszkiewicz has directly insulted the basic competence and, in claiming it to be political, the integrity and honesty of scores, even hundreds of customs workers who actually feel that THEY are working to keep American consumers safer by ensuring that you're getting what you're supposedly buying. And this is key:

Gibson's had eleven other imports of East Indian Rosewood and/or Ebony since August 2010. All of those imports claim to be of finished Ebony and/or Rosewood for musical products.

So, how long has Gibson been knowingly importing wood under fraudulent paperwork? Because if you, my friend, bought a guitar made out of fraudulently-sourced wood from Gibson, you have been defrauded yourself – and this is where my lawyer buddies see the blood in the water. Not their line of work, but if Gibson has sold 2,000 guitars fraudulently, that's a class-action lawsuit. How many years? How many customers? 5,000? 10,000? 20,000? 50, 100, no one knows – yet - but if you're wondering what could have possibly transformed a shifty-eyed cost-cutter into a raging, caped Defender of Freedom and Enemy of Tyranny....

You know, for years the guitar forums have talked about how if you bought a Les Paul Studio mail-order – not from a store – you could look through the dye on the back and see it was made with five pieces of mahogany in the body. And how many pieces were being used in the solid-painted White Les Paul Customs? You can go to Wal-Mart and see their “solid wood” $25 stool made with the pressure-glued sticks.... Of course a competent musician can still pick through a rack full of them and find a good one, but for years Mr. Juszkiewicz was derided as the weasely little cost-cutter who's cost Gibson their reputation. I was actually surprised, coming from that background, that they were now the makers of the best guitars in the world (again?) following the raid.

The charges against the company constitute a felony, and if proven, the company could face large fines and the executives involved could face jail terms. But in the opinion of some really good lawyers, it's the potential for customer lawsuits that caused the CEO to take a calculated risk (believe me, he would NOT do this without counsel) and leap whole-heartedly into a political superhero costume.

Now in MY opinion, a customer class-action lawsuit would be a lose-lose-lose situation - you'd devalue the worth of your own collection - but these things are driven by the other kind of lawyer, the guys you see trolling for "victims" on the cheap TV ads. Do NOT be surprised to see some ads to the effect of: "If you bought a Gibson between 1995 and 2011, YOU may be entitled... etc." The guys I work for have nothing but contempt for these fellows, but they can slice a one/third fee off of a billion-dollar asbestos judgement - so they're gonna keep coming. The fact that Gibson themselves have become well-known for purely predatory lawsuit-filing is kinda... poetic, in a way.

[Erv Niehaus]

Why didn't the black boots raid Martin?
I could tell you but I don't want to get political.

[Dave Mudgett]

claiming to be importing finished fingerboards when they were importing raw wood

The problem, IMHO, is that we're sending in what amounts to a SWAT team to Gibson over whether or not they're importing finished or raw wood. This has nothing to do with endangered species of wood - it's more of a trade issue than anything else.

If this is the turning issue, I think you'll find defense of this type of behavior by the American government turns the stomach of a lot of Americans. Even if it's the law, they'll argue it should be dissed and ultimately changed. It looks like they're arguing that they want to defend (and are obliged to enforce at the point of a gun) the practice of foreign governments insisting that they be the ones to finish the wood, and not our own people (who are, after all, the ones who will be using the wood and are presumably better informed as to how it should be finished.)

I still want to know, "Why an armed SWAT team?". Do they have any reason to really expect armed resistance from Gibson? AYFKM?

I think there's more here than meets the eye. A lot of people in the guitar biz are unhappy with Gibson and Henry these days, but I don't think it has anything to do with wood importation.

IMHO, this type of approach to enforcing trade policy is a loser for everybody.

All purely my opinions, YMMV.

PS - although this is indeed about guitars (and thus music), it is certainly not about steel players, per se, and probably belongs in the Music section.

[David Mason]

They didn't raid Martin because they don't have evidence of fraudulent buying and importation of wood from Martin. They didn't raid Music Man, they didn't raid Heritage, they didn't raid Taylor... so what? One of the things that makes this "Hollywood thriller" type material is that there very clearly is one or more inside sources at Gibson who either want their employer to follow the law, or they want to fry Henry's tush, or they want a book deal.... it's fairly famous as one of the worst places to work in America. And obviously, the reason for that specific raid at those times relates to the tracking of some of the illegal wood - finding it within specific instruments and finished parts is evidence. Someone told them where the wood was moving to.

And again, it has nothing to do with the U.S. government trying to help the Indian workforce. That entire issue (and the one of inspectors stopping you at the border) is a smokescreen, a brainworm cleverly implanted by Juszkiewicz. Gibson was importing wood illegally, claiming it was something else. Henry Juszkiewicz is pursuing a strategy known as "O.Jaying", tying the issue to everything inflammatory in the hopes of overwhelming the evidence. They're not coming for your guitars, they're not busting companies who didn't break the laws, Gibson's not ever going to buy finished fingerboards from anyone, they'd just import other wood - read the evidence, it's a much simpler case to explain with facts rather than paranoia.

[b0b]

I'm closing this as there are already several topics open about the same subject.