Workers file retaliation charges as Sensata threatens to close plant early

by Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor

Wed Oct 24, 2012 at 09:08 AM PDT

Bain-owned Sensata Technologies has finally responded to the months-long struggle of its workers to keep their jobs from being moved to China on Nov. 5. The response? Quit fighting or we'll close the plant immediately. Faced with this clear threat of retaliation, workers have filed unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board:

Two charges were filed with the NLRB today. The first charge was for “increasing security and announcing a new policy, or a previously unenforced policy, prohibiting off-duty employees from entering work areas at non-work times, in response to and in retaliation for employees engaging in protected concerted activity,” while the second charge was for threatening to shut the plant down.

Refusing to be intimidated, the workers and their supporters are planning a protest outside the Freeport, Illinois, Sensata plant Wednesday afternoon, joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others. The protest, and the plant closure, happens not just against the backdrop of the presidential election, but as Sensata releases an earnings report:

Sensata Technologies Holding N.V. (ST) reported that its third-quarter net income was $41.5 million, or $0.23 per share, up from $26.2 million, or $0.14 per share in the same quarter last year.

But under the business model Mitt Romney built Bain Capital around, that's not enough. So with less than two weeks to go before the election, 170 Illinois workers face unemployment with severance packages reduced in preparation for the mass layoffs, and China will have that many more dollar-an-hour jobs that used to be American jobs good enough to own homes and send kids to college. And now the workers fighting that are being told to shut up or lose their jobs a couple weeks early.