TWU Objects: AE Wants to Hire Ally of Firm Where Mitt Romney Stripped Assets and Laid Off Workers
TWU filed objections Friday to American Eagle’s request for permission from the bankruptcy court to hire Bain Consulting to help it extract concessions from TWU-represented workers for a fee of $525,000 per month, to be paid out of the same pot of money that would otherwise pay costs such as workers’ pay and benefits.
When Mitt Romney was a partner at Bain Capital, he made millions by stripping assets and laying off employees of otherwise healthy companies, according to Romney’s opponents for the Republican Presidential nomination.
Although Bain Consulting and Bain Capital are separate entities, they have strong institutional relationships.
Bain would be just one of multiple, overlapping layers of consultants, lawyers and bankers that the American Debtors want to pay inflated fees out of company assets to extract concessions from its workforce.
TWU International President James C. Little said,
The American Airlines debtors seem completely deaf to what most Americans are saying and feeling right now. Why would they want to pay half a million dollars a month to Bain Consulting, essentially to help it deprive workers and communities of the benefits and protections that give them a middle class life, when Bain Capital is already getting ripped in the news for doing just that, and millions of people around the country are demanding that the 1% stop trying to rob the American Dream from the 99%?
TWU filed a motion with the bankruptcy court last Friday objecting to the hiring of Bain. In its motion, TWU said Bain is one
among other numerous and overlapping layers of professionals, some of whom are entirely unnecessary and all of whom the Debtors propose to retain at a significant and unreasonable expense to the Debtor’s estate.
“Certain of the other Debtors in these cases propose the concurrent retention of at least three law-firms and three investment banks and financial advisors,” the union said.
“More troubling is that four of the proposed professionals, including Bain, are retained for the singular goal of extracting concessions from the Debtors’ rank and file employees, current and retired, who have dedicated their careers to the service of the Debtors,” it stated.
TWU’s court filing went on:
To add insult to injury, the Debtors propose to pay their numerous professionals with the money generated from TWU member sacrifices. The Debtors propose to encumber their estates with millions of dollars of administrative expenses without any showing of concomitant value to the estates or the creditors. The relief this Debtor requests is markedly unreasonable, contrary to the law and spirit of the Bankruptcy Code and should not be countenanced.
For more information about Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, go to
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/01/14/bain-capital-made-millions-sc-steelmaker-mill-morale-finances-suffered
http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/as_bain_slashed_jobs_romney_stayed_to_side/
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/19/romney_corporate_welfare_king/
http://www.salon.com/topic/bain_capital/
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120117/OPINION12/201170304/Eugene-Robinson-fair-share-scrutiny
This article is based in part on a report by Terry Maxon from the Dallas News, http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/01/twu-objects-to-american-eagles.html.
