'I'm sick to my stomach': anger grows in Illinois at Bain's latest outsourcing plan
Source: Guardian UK
'I'm sick to my stomach': anger grows in Illinois at Bain's latest outsourcing plan
The Sensata plant in Freeport is profitable and competitive, but its majority owner, Bain Capital, has decided to ship jobs to China and forced workers to train their overseas replacements
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So as Sensata strips out costs by sacking American workers in favour of Chinese ones, the value of Romney's own investments could rise, putting money into the pockets of a Republican challenger who has placed job creation in America at the heart of his bid for the White House.
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Bain bought the firm that was to become Sensata in 2006, when it was the Texan arm of a Dutch company. It then floated it on the stock exchange in 2010, but kept a majority stake. Sensata came to own the Freeport plant at the beginning of 2011 as part of a wider purchase of a car parts business from Honeywell.
Sensata spokesman Jacob Sayer said closing the Freeport plant to cut costs was a key element of the Honeywell deal. "If that had not been part of the strategy, then the deal would not have been so attractive," he said.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/10/illinois-workers-bain-outsourcing
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
louis-t
(23,295 posts)If this is true, they really have no excuse. How many other companies were actually profitable before Mitt got his mitts on them?
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)Mitt wouldn't have been interested in a truly troubled company because they probably couldn't afford to pay Bain's fees. He MIGHT have bought a company to close it if they had a product that would fit into one of his other companies, but as far as resurrecting a company that is in real trouble? No. No matter what Mitt says, he wouldn't have done that.
LBO artists have a different definition of "troubled company" than the rest of us. Most LBO victims were taken private because the stock was trading lower than the company's management wanted it to. Prime example: RJR Nabisco. The management of RJReynolds Industries merged their company with Nabisco Brands because Reynolds, even though it had many food lines (they owned Del Monte and the company that makes Hawaiian Punch), traded as a tobacco company. After the merger, they still traded as a tobacco company. So, because the RJR Nabisco stock price was seven times earnings per share rather than 22 times earnings per share, it made perfect sense to take the company private.
The thing is, RJR Nabisco was a very successful, very profitable company. Think for a minute: how many of their products do you have in your house? Maybe some Oreos, a box of Ritz, Animal Crackers, some A-1 steak sauce? EVERYONE uses at least a couple of the products that company makes. They could have soldiered on as a combined company and thrived forever...but because someone didn't like where the stock was trading, the world had come to an end.
Monk06
(7,675 posts)face. It won't matter because he was the founder of Bain and invented it's corporate raider/off-shoring business model. Bain represents how Romney thinks, especially his attitude toward the American worker and voter.
As far as he's concerned American workers can fuck off and die.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,840 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)It's very clear that this is precisely how Willard made his fortune. (In excess of what he inherited from his super-rich family.)
midnight
(26,624 posts)Wisconsin was home to some of G.E.production and thanks to Scott Walker we come in last for jobs creation... G.E. shipping badly needed jobs in Wisconsin doesn't help us either.... Bain sees all the other boys doing it, so like a copy cat-Bain follows suite.....
Those in Washington have got to stop expending our tax dollars for over sea's growth in jobs and war....
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Cause this it the new America...where corporations are people that cannot ever feel patriotism and so they don't give a fuck about American workers...in their eyes you are slugs like Ayn Rand said...and the real people of worth are the investors in Bain....the job creators....and they will continue creating jobs in China unless you lower your wages to meet the China labor... and you may need to kiss their ass real good to get them back even then...and that is what they mean when they say competition is good.
We need a new business model.
I'm just a lower middle class person, highly educated, but spent my career in "public service".....I have a very hard time understanding WHY these people send our jobs overseas - don't they have ANY decency - ANY patriotism????? Why can't Congress do something to discourage this BS???
zeemike
(18,998 posts)No matter what business school you go to they will teach you that profit for the corporation is the only job the CEO has...and he has the duty to do anything to make that happen..and the if any one takes the regard of people or such human things into account they are not doing their duty to the stockholders....but they do stop short of telling them to commit crimes....although it is not for moral reasons.
And it was congress that repealed the laws that kept this in check...and I am sure they were handsomely rewarded for it.
trayfoot
(1,568 posts)But I guess I just don't understand why people think "money" is the "be all and end all" of life! No, I didn't make the kind of money I could have, but that was not the most important thing to me - I wanted to help others get out of the hole. How much money does a person need?????
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But I don't really know.
But how much money does a man need reminds me of a Tolstoy story...How Much Land Does A Man Need?
If you never have read it it is worth reading...I think it is on line...it is a short story but illustrates how these thing come to be in his own way.
Here.
http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Morals and shit can be for those that get fired.
Liberalman777
(35 posts)In Vandalia, Ill 170 jobs are being shipped to supposedly Indiana. However what does that matter if you are the one losing your job?
Concordia
(38 posts)Oddly enough, I live in this town, and we've lost nearly all of our industry over the last 15 years. 170 people doesn't sound like much, but this is a town of only 7,000 and it's the largest in the county. The town's a sinking ship, just like hundreds of others in the middle of the country.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Not only can you reduce labor costs, but the costs of relocating are deductible; lower foreign income taxes are deductible from American taxes and tax avoidance schemes requiring lawyers and accountants to fathom abound. All encourage outsourcing, and it is all perfectly legal thanks to the soulless cretins we send to Congress and the humanoid reptiles like Mitt Romney who own them.
trayfoot
(1,568 posts)for socialism.....doesn't make it right or desirable. The almighty dollar is not the MOST important part of this equation! OK, I did read the last sentence, but it drives me insane that these "corporatists" get the best of our country and the best of other countries - NOT FAIR TO THE AMERICAN WORKER!
heaven05
(18,124 posts)this, if true is outrageous
roseBudd
(8,718 posts)Hotler
(11,425 posts)they would all walk out and let the managers do the training, they're going to get fired any way. How bad does it have to get, how much more of a fucking are the workers going to take until they unite in mass and take to the streets and shut this country down for months straight.
dflprincess
(28,079 posts)but if they walk off they probably won't be eligible for unemployment benefits. It's real easy for those of us not in their shoes to think they should take to the streets but when you're worried about feeding your family or keeping the roof over your head, it's hard to stand up and fight.
Our corporate masters depend on this.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)Train them to do exactly the wrong thing in exactly the worst way.
We ALL should do this when training replacements from overseas. Sabotage the bastards. They deserve at least that much.
Hotler
(11,425 posts)Vox Moi
(546 posts)... has gotta be a mind-numbing and heart-breaking experience. Everyone will say that it is a Corporate Decision and everyone will say they are sorry to have to do this. Even Bain. The Bain-ality of Evil. This is a grotesque and demeaning and ultimately self-defeating practice that ought to be strung around Romney's neck like the albatross it is.
Many more people than at Sensata have gone through this and if holding this up to the spotlight to this won't save any body's job, it might let Sensata workers know that they have friends. Friends who are fed up.
Heart-breaking is probably a good way of putting it.
http://www.journalstandard.com/news/x1696238538/Honeywell-sells-Sensing-and-Control-unit-to-Sensata-Technologies talks about the original sale of the Honeywell-owned plants to Sensata.
It won't save their jobs. Sensata lost money in 2010 and the preceeding years. Even if it is making money now (which is what the article seems to be saying) it's not implied that the Freeport plant itself is making money. It's space is leased, and if most of the sensors really are shipped overseas it only makes sense (environmental and financial) to produce them closer to where they're used. After all, the current "good times" may not last and, if there's another downturn, Sensata would probably be losing money again.
I wonder who Sensata's customers are?
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)Amonester
(11,541 posts)The Contact us link is located down the homepage under Campaign.
http://www.barackobama.com/
Surprise, surprise! (NOT)
pacalo
(24,721 posts)Citizen Worker
(1,785 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)If Bain is going to shut down the plant anyway can't they get it at a nice price?
Then they can enjoy the risk and reward of owning their own company. They are already expert at running the place.
Igel
(35,320 posts)It's not being liquidated.
In fact, it sounds like most of the output goes to manufacturers in China. It's cheaper to make the sensors near where they're installed in cars.
If the employees could buy it, it's likely Sensata would just start up a similar company in China. If not, they'd be asked to sell at the cost that Sensata could produce them for in China.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Thanks for the thread, kpete.
mysuzuki2
(3,521 posts)Liberalman777
(35 posts)What exactly wuld it take for these people to wake up?
lovuian
(19,362 posts)they are STUPID
Bain is evil
he gives the worker Hope so they will train their replacement thinking they will get some good out of it
when they destroy themselves and there was no hope
it is the ULTIMATE EVIL