Sensata worker: Romney's job claims make him 'just a bold-faced liar'

by Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor

Tue Oct 16, 2012 at 07:41 AM PDT

Sensata Technologies workers have been fighting for months to let the world know what Bain Capital and Mitt Romney were doing to them: packing up a profitable plant in Illinois and sending the jobs to China, forcing American workers to train the Chinese workers who would ultimately replace them. Mitt Romney still isn't acknowledging his responsibility, either for the way of doing business he set up at Bain or for the millions he personally has invested in the funds that control Sensata. But the Sensata story is catching fire, and the workers are letting voters know what a Romney jobs plan looks like.

• Sensata worker Mary Jo Kerr was on The Ed Show on Monday night, saying she had initially liked Romney before she learned his connection to Bain and Sensata. About Romney's campaign claims, she says that "he's just a bold-faced liar. He's going out there saying 'I'm going to create American jobs' when no, he's not, he's profiting off of jobs going overseas." The Ed Show will go on the road to Freeport, Illinois, on Friday.
  
• Bainport, the camp workers have set up across the street from the Sensata factory, is getting a visit from Sen. Dick Durbin, along with Democratic congressional candidate Cheri Bustos, on Tuesday morning. The Rev. Al Sharpton will visit Bainport on Saturday.
  
• Workers not just from Sensata but from other Bain-owned companies rallied outside Bain headquarters in Manhattan on Monday. "I was unemployed for two years and the job at Burlington is the only job I could find. I know I’m not the only one with that experience," Burlington Coat Factory employee Richard Hooten said. "My mother and I have had to move to a series of smaller and cheaper apartments. Even so, I can’t afford both rent and healthcare. What’s going to happen when these are the only jobs we can find? None of us will be able to get by." The workers are going to Long Island to tell their stories outside Tuesday night's presidential debate.
  

Mitt Romney, businessman, was nothing like the job creator he wants voters to believe he was. He cut jobs, cut pensions, cut pay at the jobs that were left. Even today he's profiting off of the destruction of good American manufacturing jobs. This is the business experience Romney is so proud of, and it's the economic experience he'd bring into office. Voters need to know that, and the Sensata workers are getting the word out every way they can.