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JENO PAULUCCI: Well, let's start out with the CEOs of these large corporations. It seems to me that the stockholders are really being taken advantage of when a CEO will pay himself 10 million, 15 million, $20 million a year and he has no risk. He or she has no risk whatsoever.

Then that same corporation will go out and fire 40,000 people as AT&T is doing, while Mr. Allen collects $9 million for this past year's compensation. I think that's wrong. I think that's wrong. I think that there should be a level where you say, well, I won't make quite as much money, but I'll stabilize my employment base.

Duluth right now costs us $2 million a year more. Then if I put everything in Jackson, Ohio, and I have room for it in Jackson, Ohio, it's only 5 million cases a year. But I figure if I make $2 million less, which is about 1,200,000 after tax less if I can afford it, leave the damn plant alone and leave those people working. So there's got to be some of that because you don't, as I told you earlier, you don't build a business without people, without the team, without the people that come to work every day, that work on those lines or whatever it is.

SPEAKER: You criticize executive compensation, but at the same time, some of your employees at Luigino's, they're not making, according to some government standards, enough to be above the poverty line in terms of their wages. There's an employment agency up in I guess it's in Northwestern Wisconsin in superior that won't even send workers anymore, applicants apparently to Luigino's for work.

JENO PAULUCCI: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because that's always been some criticism of Gino. Number 1, we're in the food industry. We're not in the steel industry. We're not in the automobile industry. We're not in the paper making industry.

We pay food industry wages. Number 2, we have never paid any less than what the federal or state laws require. Number 3, that's only been a starting point. Right now, it's around $5 an hour. That's higher than the minimum wage.

Our average cost per employee in Duluth, for example, or Jackson, Ohio, for that matter, because they're all unionized, runs us close to. $20,000 a year, considering overtime, hospitalization, vacations, and all that. So our average is around $20,000 a year. And I'm damn proud of it.

And I'd like to see anyone come in and show me where I'm paying anything less than anyone else, whether it be staffers, whether it be lean cuisine, whether it be Conagra with their healthy choice, whether it be Heinz with their Weight Watchers and Budget Gourmet. Show me where I'm paying any less. I pay fair. And I'm damn proud of what we pay.

And why do my people always stay with me? And if some North Northwestern Wisconsin person doesn't send somebody, it may be because he wants to keep them on welfare. So I'm damn proud of what we're doing, and I'll spit in the eye of anyone who says that I'm not being damn fair and have been always fair since the time I started with employees.

SPEAKER: What has your success in business afforded you in terms of access to politicians, both local and national?

JENO PAULUCCI: Well, Mark, just because you dislike a certain segment of our way of life, which is a necessary part. We got to have politics. That doesn't mean that I didn't get involved. I felt that I had to be involved not in a point of officers, not running for office, but I had to be involved.

I had to know the presidents, and I had to know their staffs. And I had to know the bureaucrats. And that dates back to President Kennedy. The only one, well, Clinton, I spent about an hour with him and Hillary once, but there I never been at the White House or gotten involved since he's been in office. He's too liberal for me.

Why was I able to bring all these monies and all that to the Northeastern Minnesota? It was because I had an inside track. No matter whether a Republican or Democrat, I was always an independent. And I worked the halls.

Also, I was national chairman of the National Italian American Foundation for 17 years. I had offices in Washington. I had an apartment in Washington. And I was the head of the-- I put together an organization that was a spokesman for the Italian-American community throughout the United States because I got sick and tired of that if you made some money that people thought you were part of the syndicate.

And so I decided that I was going to put together an organization. And with the help of certain congressmen in Washington, we put together an organization called the National Italian American Foundation that today is darn near worldwide. And I was chairman for 17 years. Well, that gave me an entree in every facet of politics in Washington and practically every state of the nation.

SPEAKER: Do you view yourself as a powerful person?

JENO PAULUCCI: No. I'm a very independent person, very independent where I'll be lacking or nobody. And that's sometimes what causes us love hate that I have. I often wonder what the hell, I'm in a private business. I'm not a politician.

What the hell are people writing me letters, snotty letters about, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? What business is it of theirs? I remember the publisher of the Duluth News came to my office once and my request about your goal. And that was when I was having the problem with Hibbing.

And he finally got up and he said, "Why the hell don't you leave town?" I don't think he is hell, I do. And I said, "Why don't you go first?" But what is it that I can't run my own business? I got to do it at the will of the people?

I never had $1 or a penny grant from anybody. I've had low-cost loans because that's part of the deal if I can employ people. And if I can get a city or a county with the funds that they have dedicated to it to give me a low-cost loan, I'm going to get it, but I'm going to pay it.

So it's that feeling of independence. And yet, it makes me mad, real mad when I do things for the public good, when I mind my own business. I don't go around down the street playing drums or the Energizer Bunny going around. I mind my own business, and yet everybody else wants to mind it, too. That bothers me.

SPEAKER 2: It seems like there has been a thread in Jeno Paulucci's business dealings that is, to a degree, well, forget you then. You're not getting my jobs. I'll put them somewhere else.

You've gone too far. You've pushed me too far. What more can I do? I'm leaving. I'm picking up and leaving.

JENO PAULUCCI: I run my own business. That's why I'm successful. I do it in an ethical manner. I never break a promise. But I run my own business, and I don't give a God damn what other people think as long as it's ethical, as long as it's honest, and as long as it's keeping my family provided properly.

SPEAKER 2: You were quoted once as saying that maybe one of the things you regretted most, and I don't know if this has changed since the time that you said this, was moving, the 1,200 Jeno's Pizza jobs out of Duluth in 1982. That was at a time, as you recall, when the mining industry was kind of falling apart. Why did you do it? Do you still regret that?

JENO PAULUCCI: Well, number 1, it was about 1,500 jobs. Number 2, the Gino's Incorporated I had gifted to my three children when I sold Chun King and started Gino's Incorporated, those pizza rolls I talked about. And therefore, I was a custodian of their funds.

We lost $16 million that year in 1981, and no company can sustain that kind of loss. We had severe competition from Pillsbury, who had bought out Totino in Minneapolis. They were cutting my prices all over. Their quality was better than mine because I had five stories in Duluth.

I had a plant in Fargo. I had a plant in Superior, Wisconsin. I had the West Duluth plant besides. And I had a plant in Georgia. And you couldn't pack all those places and have a good cost structure, a good quality structure.

So I knew that I had to bite the bullet. And I was fortunate to be able to buy a building in Wellston, Ohio, that was closed and move everything there. And so I had to do it in order to survive.

SPEAKER: Why did you get back into the food business? You had a no compete clause after you sold Gino's. And after that expired, then presumably you could legally open another Italian food business, and that became Luigino's.

You were already in your 70s. You had a lot of successes to look back on. Why get into the game one more time?

JENO PAULUCCI: First of all, I don't care about looking back. I'm looking forward. Who knows? I might die tomorrow, and I might be here till I'm 100.

Food business is my life. I love food. I like to create. I'm like a, I guess a Picasso that likes to paint. I like to create and build a company and then sell it.

SPEAKER: What do you want to be remembered for out of all the things you have done and all of the battles you have fought?

JENO PAULUCCI: That I was a good family man, that I was an activist, that I put back into the community, and that I spit in anybody's eye that got in my way.