The Freeport, Illinois branch of Sensata Technologies is scheduled to shut down by the end of 2012, its 170 some jobs being shipped to China by the company’s owner, Bain Capital.
Freeport’s city council has united in opposition to the branch’s closing by approving a resolution of appeal to presidential candidate Mitt Romney “to come to Freeport to meet the people directly affected by Bain’s Capital outsourcing and to step in and stop the outsourcing of these jobs from Freeport to China.”
Although Mitt Romney holds that he left Bain Capital in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, evidence counter to his claim remains. An annual Bain report filed in 2002 lists Romney as a managing member of Bain Capital Investors, LLC “authorized to execute, acknowledge, deliver, and record any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real property, whether to be recorded with a Registry of Deeds or with a District Office of the Land Court.”
Regardless of Romney’s resignation date, Freeport residents and Sensata workers believe he holds some responsibility. “[Bain] used his business models,” Tom Gaulrapp, a 33-year Sensata worker said. “And the board of directors and most of the officers at Bain Capital were put in place by him.”
Fellow Sensata employee Dot Turner appeared Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” to express her concern. “I’ll be losing a real good income and Ill be going on unemployment. And it’s going to be really, really be really difficult for me to try to think about going back to school at my age and being retrained.”
Shelly Griswold, City of Freeport Community Development Director was also present. “We certainly believe (Romney) has some influence,” she said. She also mentioned that it will be hard for the company to find workers of the “same caliber that will do the job that our folks in Freeport do right now.”
The Romney campaign claims the governor did not know about Bain’s Freeport decision. Said campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg, “Gov. Romney is not familiar with this issue and has not been involved in the management of Bain since 1999.”
Elisabeth Turner is currently studying Creative Writing and Journalism at Hofstra University. She likes to read The New York Times and Toni Morrison, and in her spare time, study the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can read some of her recent thoughts about life here: http://elisabethturner.wordpress.com/.
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