Sunday, August 19, 2012

ROMNEY THE LIAR ILLEGALLY SUPPRESSED A LABOR UNION

Willard, being basically hostile to ordinary working people, hates unions and typically combines the words "union" and "thug" whenever he speaks of them. So it's no surprise that when Bain [Vulture] Capital was growing, HE BROKE THE LAW to prevent a union from being formed in a company Bain had acquired. Financial Times  has the story here

It was in 1984 that Mr Romney and Mr [T. Coleman]  Andrews founded Bain Capital in an office next door to Bain & Company in Boston. Key Airlines went with them. Towards the end of 1984 their new firm made one of its first investments: a $2m injection into Key. Regulatory filings indicate that Bain Capital’s stake was 24 per cent. 

SEC records show that Mr Romney was a director of Key Airlines when the company was finally sold. Mr Romney’s campaign declined to comment on this or other financial questions about the Key investment. [My emphasis]

[In 1985] Operating profit fell to $1.1m on sales of $30.5m and there was a net loss of $736,000. But a serious issue arose when a majority of Key’s pilots tried to form a union.

Accounts differ as to why Key’s pilots, at the end of 1985, wanted to organise: the pilots cited safety concerns; management said that the pilots were unhappy because of their low pay.

Either way, Bain’s management team at Key recognised that a union would be a problem – particularly because Bain was ready to sell Key, adopting a plan of liquidation for its holding company at the end of 1985.

“Any knowledgeable person familiar with investment in airlines will tell you that it is far easier for non-union airlines to raise capital than it is for a unionised airline,” wrote James Bridges, chief executive, in a letter sent to the pilots in December 1985. Mr Bridges did not return messages left with his office. There followed an unlawful attempt by Mr Andrews and Key management, in the words of District Court judge Roger Foley, “to stamp out any cockpit crew members’ union before it could come into being”.

In January 1986, Mr Andrews and Olen Rae Goodwin, interim president of the union, met in the Key Airlines trailer at Nellis. The court ruled that Mr Andrews had then “threatened [Mr] Goodwin’s job and he threatened to leave Key, and that the management team would also leave. He threatened to sell Key”.

That's Bain style! Threaten to fire someone if they try to form a union--WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW.  And of course, the secrecy, the lack of comment by the campaign on this matter, are all par for the course. That's Willard's ugly, bare-knuckled way of doing things. Read the whole thing (registration is required). 

And see why the word "thug" doesn't apply to the union--it applies to Willard.  Oh, and just to show that I haven't forgotten--


WHERE ARE YOUR FEDERAL INCOME TAX RECORDS, WILLARD? DID YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE 2009 TAX AMNESTY THE IRS OFFERED TO PEOPLE ILLEGALLY SHELTERING MONEY IN SWITZERLAND?

1 comment:

  1. It's funny that when management threatens the livelihood of workers the CONS don't bat an eyelash but when labor wants to negotiate for a fair wage they are a bunch of socialists.

    There are bigger scumbags than Romney and they are the people who support him.

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