Bain off-shoring victims ask Romney for help
Bain Capital is still outsourcing jobs -- and some of its victims are asking Mitt Romney for a hand
While Mitt Romney struggles to explain his retroactive retirement from Bain Capital, the company he created keeps off-shoring U.S. jobs. Among them: the jobs of 170 workers in Freeport, Illinois, now training the workers who will replace them when Sensata moves their jobs to China. SEC filings reveal that the U.S. share of Sensata’s workforce has been dropping ever since Bain acquired it in 2006. And the Sensata workers aren’t Bain’s only recent casualties.
Some Sensata employees blame Romney for their impending layoffs. “He designed the business model for that company…” says production associate Tom Gaulrapp, “venture capitalism, where they’re out for every last dollar, no matter what … that’s the attitude they still have.” (The Romney Campaign and Bain Capital did not answer inquiries from Salon.)
Romney left Bain & Company, the consulting firm, to form Bain Capital, an investment firm, in 1984. As the world learned last week, Romney apparently remained “sole shareholder, sole director, chief executive officer and president” for years after his supposed 1999 departure. As the New York Times reported in December, Romney is still profiting from Bain business: his severance package provides him with a share of profits on some Bain deals negotiated up until 2009.
Journalists and opposition researchers have focused on controversial investments and off-shoring during Bain’s Romney years, and they’ve found plenty, including companies that, according to the Washington Post “were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States…” But when Romney’s tenure at Bain ended, the off-shoring didn’t.
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/17/bain_off_shoring_victims_ask_romney_for_help/