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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's Time to Debate Bain Capitalism
by John Nichols, posted on TheNation.com on October 16, 2012Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the veteran Democratic leader who mentored a young Barack Obama and remains one of the presidents closest allies, was not planning to be at Obamas side for todays final round of debate preparation.
Rather, Durban was headed back home to Illinois for a meeting with workers at the Sensata Technologies plant in Freeport, where 170 employees are slated to lose their jobs to outsourcing before the end of the year.
Sensata, which for decades has produced state-of-the-art sensors and controls for Ford and General Motors, is precisely the sort of high-tech operation that a country looking to compete in the global economy of the twenty-first century would want to maintain as a domestic manufacturer. So why are the jobs moving to China?
Because Bain Capital owns the company, and Bain is committed to the industrial development of Chinese provincesnot to states like Illinois. Thats not what most Americans would identify as a smart choice for the nations futurelet alone economic patriotism.
But that is how Bain, which got its operating ethos from former CEO Mitt Romney, operates. Romney still profits mightily from his Bain connectionas The New York Times and numerous business journals have well documentedand he remains closely tied to current Bain executives. So if anyone could get Bain to rethink the outsourcing of the Sensata jobs, its Mitt Romney.
At least, thats what Illinoisans think.
In July, the Freeport City Council voted unanimously to ask Romney to come to Freeport, meet the workers and intervene with Bain on their behalf. Freeport Mayor George Gaulrapp even offered to host a debate between Romney and President Obama at the local historic site where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas once debated.
In September, Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn visited Freeport and issued a similar call.
Now, on the day of the critical second debate between the presidential candidates (in Hempostead, New York, rather than Freeport), Durbin is headed to the community workers have dubbed Bainport.
And rightly so.
Whats happening in Freeport is a small piece of a big story: that of outsourcing technology jobsthe high-tech positions that should be powering Americas economic renewalfrom the United States to China. And that issue ought to be on the agenda for Tuesdays debate.
As Paul Gaulrapp, a thirty-three-year employee at the factory that was once honorably operated by Honeywell, says: Its time to draw a line in the sand on the outsourcing of good, American jobs.
Moderator Candy Crowley, a savvy CNN correspondent who cannot be unaware of the Freeport fight, should raise the issue.
If she does not, President Obama can and should put it in the mix. Obama does not need to abandon his medium-cool persona to define the direction of tonights debate. He just has to raise the right issues. He can do that by putting a human face on the issue of outsourcingand Bain Capitalism.
Few stories are more instructive with regard to Americas outsourcing crisisScott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing says the US has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, overwhelmingly to China, as 50,000 factories have closedthan that of the Sensata workers in Freeport. And none does more to highlight the Republican presidential nominees record of promoting job growth in China.
Indeed, as the United Steelworkers union illustrates with a dramatic new video on the outsourcing fight: Mitt Romney and Bain Capital are profiting by selling out American workers [and] shipping US jobs to China.
Romney should be confronted on this issue. He should have to answer questions and provide explanations. But he wont do that in Freeport. Indeed, he has studiously avoided the towneven when a June bus trip across southern Wisconsin put him in close proximity to the northern Illinois community.
Mitt Romneys Every Town Counts bus tour scrupulously avoided towns where Romneys Bain Capital continues to put the hurt on American workers.
When Romney stopped in Paul Ryans Janesville, Wisconsin, and then traveled to Dubuque, Iowa, on Monday, June 18, he was just up the road from Freeport.
But Romney did not stop in Freeport, a town that like Janesville and Dubuque has been hard hit by trade and fiscal policies that encourage corporations to shutter US factories and ship jobs overseasand that has been even harder hit by speculators who buy up factories, strip the assets and close them.
On the day Romney was busing across the region, Sensata workers gathered in front of the factory with handmade signs that read:
Romney! Stop Bain Outsourcing to China
Mitt Romney Save Our Jobs
Romney: Instead of talking about JOBS, just dont ship MINE to China
The workers had every reason to be upset with Bainand with Romney.
Their plant has always been innovative and productive. It was owned for decades by Texas Instruments, and then by Honeywell, before being sold in 2010 to Sensata Technologies Holding, N.V, a firm based in the Netherlands but majority-owned by Bain Capital.
The workers at the plant pleaded with Romney to make a slight detour on his bus trip and take a look at the devastation being caused by Bains machinations at a plant where many of them had been employed for more than thirty years.
Even then, the plants operations were rapidly shrinking as crews removed safety equipment from machines that were being prepared for shipment from Illinois to China.
This used to be a very high-volume plant and now its pretty much a ghost town and by the end of the year it will be a ghost town, Sensata employee Cheryl Randecker told local reporters.
Had Romney come to Freeport, he would have heard how much Bains approach has harmed not just the Sensata workers but Freeport and counties along the Illinois-Wisconsin stateline that have suffered more than their share of plant closings.
Sensata is moving forward with the process of relocating jobs from their operations in Freeport to China, explains John Blum, the chairman of the Stephenson County Board.
In addition to the significant human toll on the more than 140 families that will be affected by this loss of jobs and financial security, says Blum, The loss of these jobs will have a tremendous impact on our regional economy.
Thats a story Mitt Romney definitely does not want to focus attention on.
So his bus didnt stop in Freeport.
Romney will not go near Freeport.
But that does not mean he can or should be able to avoid the issues raised Bains outsourcing of the Sensata jobs.
He should be asked a simple question in tonights debate, and on the campaign trail going forward:
"Is talk about renewing the American economy credible coming from a man who continues to profit from the plant closings, the layoffs and the outsourcing practices that are crude byproducts of Bain Capitalism?"
http://www.thenation.com/blog/170593/its-time-debate-bain-capitalism
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