A promise not kept: Bain Capital under Presidential nominee Mitt Romney

Bain was all about profits over people: corporate liquidations. 

  
In early 2012, reports circulated detailing some of the profit-centered entitlement raids that occurred at Bain Capital under Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. 

The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance became intrigued when asbestos industry defendants appeared on a list of these types of corporate liquidations and commissioned a three-month investigation of the company’s handling of GS Industries through journalist, Gary Cohn. 

                       Gary Cohn Pulitzer Prize Winning Investigative Journalist



What we uncovered is the true human tragedy of collateral damage stemming from this profit model. We found a community affected by decades of toxic exposure, gasping for breath while picking up the pieces among an uncertain future. 

                                                They left us high and dry.”

John Cottrell had been on the job for 23 years when, in 1993, Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital assumed control of Worldwide Grinding Systems, the 105-year-old Kansas City steel mill where he worked. In the next seven years, before Cottrell retired in poor health in 2000, the mill went through some tough times, due in part to outdated machinery, the cyclical nature of the steel industry, and emerging international competition.

In response, Bain merged Worldwide with a steel mill in South Carolina, and renamed the new company GS Industries (GSI). In 1997, it endured a nasty 10-week worker strike that was motivated by the union’s skepticism that, if there was a shutdown, GSI had not earmarked sufficient reserves to cover its benefit and pension commitments.

Ultimately, a settlement was reached that increased employee pensions and guaranteed that employees would continue to receive health and life insurance, even if the plant closed down.

Which it did. In 2001, just one year after Cottrell retired with guaranteed lifetime benefits, Bain elected to put GSI into bankruptcy and close down the plant, along with its 750 jobs. The private equity firm then announced it would no longer honor its recent promise to cover employee healthcare and pension benefits if the plant closed.  Please read the rest and share it with your friends on facebook and twitter