...Bain Capital had bought a controlling interest in a paper products company called Ampad for $5 million in 1992. Two years later, after Ampad bought a factory in Marion, Ind., the new management team dismissed about 200 workers, slashed salaries and benefits, and hired strikebreakers after the union called a walkout.
"We were just fired," Randy Johnson, a former worker and union officer at the Marion plant, recalled in a telephone interview. "They came in and said, 'You're all fired. If you want to work for us, here's an application.' We had insurance until the end of the week. That was it. It was brutal."
In October 1994, Johnson and other striking workers drove to Massachusetts to protest Romney's Senate campaign. "We chased him everywhere," Johnson recalled. "He took good jobs with benefits, and created low-wage, part-time, no-benefit jobs. That's what he was creating with his investments."
Here is even more from DemocracyNow on Romney's Bain Capital business:
During his campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has preached a message of economic populism by vowing to fight to keep jobs in America. We take a look at Romney’s days heading up the buyout firm Bain Capital with Los Angeles Times reporter, Bob Drogin. He writes, "From 1984 until 1999, Romney led Bain Capital, a Boston-based private equity group that earned jaw-dropping profits through leveraged buyouts, debt hedge funds, offshore tax havens and other financial strategies. In some cases, Romney’s team closed U.S. factories, causing hundreds of layoffs, or pocketed huge fees shortly before companies collapsed."
And still more on Romney's Bain Capital from ThinkProgress:
– Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs bought Dade International for about $450 million in 1994. The firm quickly fired or relocated at least 900 workers. Over the next several years, it sunk increasingly into debt and laid off 1,000 workers. In 2002 — after Romney had left Bain — it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
– A 1997 buyout of LIVE Entertainment for $150 million resulted in 40 layoffs, roughly one in four of the company’s 166 workers. The job cuts affected all aspects of the company, from production and acquisition to legal and public relations.
– In 1997, Bain bought a stake in DDI Corp., a maker of electronic circuit boards. Three years later, Bain took the company public and collected a $36 million payout. But by August 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, laying off more than 2,100 workers....
How does Romney measure success? Is it better to make millions of dollars for yourself, while you layoff thousands of workers?
