Current and Former Bain Workers Criticize Mitt Romney

Some people who work for, and used to work for companies owned by Bain Capital are criticizing a founder of the company: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Last week, a small busload of people who’ve worked for companies owned by the private equity firm Bain Capital made stops in Janesville and Milwaukee. The current and former workers say the Romney-founded company focuses on boosting the bottom line of the firms Bain acquires, but often does so by shippingwork overseas, or making it tough on current workers. Calvin Johnson has a sales job with a Bain-owned company in California. Johnson says his firm doesn’t pay its employees much money. ‘They have us on the brink of poverty,” he says.

Romney campaign Wisconsin spokesman Ben Sparks says Romney is only an investor in Bain these days, with his holdings in a blind trust.”Mitt Romney has had no management role since 1999.”

Also last week, a video from 1985 surfaced, in which Mitt Romney said Bain was formed to invest in companies and later harvest them at a significant profit.