UPDATED: Sensata Story Will Destroy Romney -Romney's Bain Currently Selling Out US Workers to China

[Indep2992]

116. To clear up how the company was doing, see PDF on first post of this thread and linked again here

Bain Capital was founded by Mitt Romney in 1984 as a global private investment firm. Sensata Technologies, a Bain affiliate, was formed in April 2006 when the company purchased Texas Instruments’ sensors and controls division for $770 million. Just four years later, by 2010, Bain’s original investment had quadrupled to $3.2 billion, we believe largely due to outsourcing.

In 2011, when Bain and Sensata executives informed the Freeport workers, somewhat cavalierly, that they would be terminated in November 2012 and went on to explain that they were temporarily leasing the factory but were purchasing the machinery and the workers’ skills to train Chinese engineers before the work was shipped to China.

In fact, Mr. Jacob Sayer — a Sensata spokesperson, said they were closing the Freeport plant in order to cut costs. Mr. Sayer went on: “If that had not been part of the strategy, then the deal would not have been so attractive.” When questioned by Paul Harris of The Guardian (August 10, 2012), the same spokesperson refused to comment, saying “We don’t have a statement on the impact it has on Freeport.”

Bain and Sensata executives did not have a lot of time to talk about the 170 workers being terminated at the Freeport plant. The executives have had more pressing issues, such as setting up 12 Sensata/Bain capital funds “organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands” so as to avoid paying taxes.

http://www.globallabourrights.org/admin/reports/files/1210-Bain-Capital-Pitting-American-Workers-Against-Workers-in-China-Earning-Just-99-Cents-an-Hour.pdf

From the outset, Sensata said that it planned to move the jobs overseas at year-end 2012, since the majority of its auto-sensor business is in Asia. In fact, Sensdata didn't even buy the manufacturing facility from Honeywell. It leased it, with Honeywell expected to hang a for-sale sign when Sensata moves out in a few months.

To be sure, this is a horrible situation for the Sensata employees – the vast majority of whom have not yet found other employment (Honeywell hired just a small number of folks to work in its other Freeport facilities). After all, Sensata has never suggested that the plant was unprofitable. It simply thinks the effort would be more profitable elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the workers are barking up the wrong tree with Romney.

Remember, this is the guy whose campaign got into a well-publicized scuffle over whether he really stopped making decisions for Bain Capital in 1999 or 2002 (for the record, it was 1999). How could he possibly open himself up to legitimate charges of influencing Bain's behavior in 2012? Even if one argues it's the right thing to do for the workers, it's not the politically feasible thing to do (and, if anything, Romney tries to be a pragmatist in such matters).

Moreover, there is little guarantee that a Romney plea would even save the jobs. Yes, he has friends and former colleagues on the Sensata board, including chairman Paul Edgerley. But they have fiduciary responsibilities to their own investors, and Sensata has made it clear that the best financial move is to shutter Freeport.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/18/why-romney-cant-save-the-sensata-workers/