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Obama for America

" Romney Economics: Job Loss and Bankruptcy at Ampad " +
  5:46 web video from May 21, 2012.

Woman (Valerie Bruton): I really feel in my heart people need to know what Mitt Romney did to Marion, Indiana in 1994.

Randy Johnson, former SCM Employee & Union Leader: The average person in the Marion area would say that they were middle income to lower income, but we had good jobs that you could raise a family on.

The plant that I worked at was right over here.

SCM produced office supply products.  We made tablets, file folders, index cards, calendars; anything that you could use in an office or around the household.

It was a lot of work, but you felt like you'd really accomplished something.

Valerie Bruton, former SCM Employee: I really can't explain it.  My hands can explain it for all these calluses, but when you make a product and you know it's the best that you can do, it felt good.

Jerry Rayburn, former SCM Employee: Good paying job with good benefits.  I loved working with the people I worked with.  I thought I was settled in for life. 

[Music changes tempo]

TEXT: 1994
           Bain Capital-owned Ampad buys SCM. 
           Mitt Romney is Bain Capital's CEO.

Female News Announcer: Until early July workers were employed by SCM, an office products supplier, but then the company was sold to Ampad.

Man: One day we had a job, and the next day we didn't.

Randy Johnson: We'd been bought and sold in the past.  We'd never had a problem; we were always a business that had value.

Sharon Bennett, former SCM Employee: Then when Bain Capital bought us and Ampad come in, that was a whole different story.  They put armed guards up at the doors, did not look at anyone, did not speak to anybody and told us we were all fired.

Jerry Rayburn: I understand if you've got to cut back, layoffs, I mean that's part of the business.  We accepted that over the years when we were there.  But you don't come in and just take everything everybody's got and destroy a business.  I mean that's what they did. 

We were a nice strong, healthy company, we were making money, and for them to just come out from nowhere and shut the place down, it was devastating.

News Announcer: When Ampad bought the former SCM plant, it abruptly fired all 350 workers.  The union says it reduce wages and benefits.

Jerry Rayburn: First thing they did is knock the pay down...

News Clip of Jerry Rayburn from 1994: We've got people in here that [inaud.] wages that they made 14 years ago.

Jerry Rayburn: ...took our benefits.  We didn't have any more retirement.  And Bain, Mitt Romney, they did not care about us as workers.  They were looking at the mighty dollar.

Valerie Bruton: When I look at the clipping that I have in the paper of the closing, that's where it all started for me.  This was the worst day of my life.

At the time all this happened I was pregnant, have two kids at home, and I just lost my job.

Jerry Rayburn: From week to week I didn't know what I was going to do.  I was barely getting by.  Groceries were thin.

Valerie Bruton: When SCM shut down the doors, that was the first time I'd ever been in the system with food stamps.  Then I had to get on Medicaid.  It was just, it was rough, but I did it...
Randy Johnson: You did it because you had to.
Valerie Bruton: I had no choice because I had my babies, my babies depended on me. 

That was the most degrading thing.  I mean don't get me wrong; it's there for a reason.  But I never in my whole life ever think I would have to resort to that because I wasn't raised like that.  My parents instilled in me you give it 110 percent of whatever you do in life.  So when you're not raised with getting public assistance, that was very devastating to me.

Randy Johnson: As a leader, that was my job too.  When you have to sit there and watch people's faces, and they're looking to you for the answers and they just break down, and it'll choke you up; it's real.

Sharon Bennett: I had my electricity turned off and my heat turned off and they were threatening to take my car.  I was scared.  I mean it affects every aspect of your life.

News Announcer: As for Ampad's side of this story--
News Reporter: No interviews, no response, no reaction, no comment, nothing?
Security Guard: That's what I was just told; I'm just doing what I'm told.

TEXT: 2000
          Ampad is saddled with massive debt and files for bankruptcy.
          Bain Capital has made over $100 million in profit.

Jerry Rayburn: To me Mitt Romney takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich.  He's just the opposite of Robin Hood.

Randy Johnson: And just think we're talking about just the companies, but how many businesses associated with those companies, how many mom and pop shops, how many restaurants, how many bars and things like that around these plants, how many small communities were devastated?  It doesn't just stop, you know, with the worker. 

Jerry Rayburn: It makes me sick to my stomach when I sit there and watch Mitt Romney tell the American people about how he creates all these jobs.

Valerie Bruton: They're not jobs for a middle class person.  I mean you would have to work his job and two other jobs just to maintain.

Sharon Bennett: You can tell by the way he acts, the way he talks, he doesn't care anything about the middle class or the lower class people.

TEXT: Ampad isn't the only company Bain Capital has profited from bankrupting...

TEXT: Bain Profit
      Ampad $100 million, bankrupt in 2000.  Stage $170 million, bankrupt in 2000.  Dade $250 million, bankrupt in  2002.

Randy Johnson: Mitt Romney's philosphy for doing business is to take over companies just to get some money, then dump the business no matter what.  If that's his approach to American economy, I can't imagine it being very pretty for the workers.  Every person that's on the lower scale right now wants to work to the middle income, and they'll work their tail off in this country to do it, and if Mitt Romney's in charge, I don't know whether they're going to get the opportunity at all.

Notes: