Texas Instruments Sensors & Controls becomes Sensata
I started writing this post last week, but if anything the subject has gotten hotter, so I'm glad I'm glad I already started this because all that reading I did last week helps contextualize what is happening. Context? If you go to Sensata Technologies you find this on their "about" us page:
The name Sensata comes from the Latin word sensata, meaning “those gifted with sense”. To complement our business and name, our logo is inspired by Braille, the writing system based on touch.
That's nice. But if you dig a little you find this was originally an all American company that did cool things for our country. But now it's been internationalized. Though most of its market is still here in the USA.
Our highly engineered devices satisfy the world’s growing need for safety, energy efficiency, and a clean environment. These are devices that improve safety, efficiency and comfort for millions of people every day and are used in automotive, appliance, aircraft, industrial, military, heavy vehicle, heating, air conditioning, data, telecommunications, recreational vehicle and marine applications.
Gosh, I remember an American Company that used to do that sort of thing. I loved that company. Wonder what happened? Oh:
Until 2006, we were called Texas Instruments Sensors & Controls. Today we are the world’s leading supplier of sensors and controls across a broad range of markets and applications.
Gosh, this was Texas Instruments? No, fortunately that company is still around. It's webpage is here: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor/compinfo/corpOverview.shtml. What happened? Why didn't we get an international company and still have Texas Instruments? I thought that the purpose of competition was to have multiple companies competing with each other to make an ever more satisfied and happy consumer? What happened to Texas Instruments Sensors and Controls?
They are being shipped to China. Indeed as the Daily Kos said in an article, Romney is an expert of creating jobs. Just not in the USA.
Sensata creating jobs--overseas
Today they claim that Sensata has created lots of jobs, way more than the 170 they are outsourcing from Illinois to China.
Yes, Sensata has created thousands of jobs. The problem is, they are all overseas.
Read More at Daily Koshttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1147111/-Sensata-creating-jobs-overseas
Well what can you expect? Romney is conducting a hostile takeover of what he sees as a corporation named the US. The tried and true methodology of hostile takeovers, is that you pitch your real intentions to the owner/investors of the company, because you'll make lots of money from what you are going to do and they need to be onboard. And you lie to everyone else. What Romney is doing to Sensata, through his lawyer and "blind trust" is what he seems to plan to do the country.
The Debate
The particular factory that is forming the epicenter of this atrocity is located in Freeport Illinois. This is one of the central locations for the famed Lincoln Douglas Debates, which took about 7 hours and really didn't end until Lincoln won election. As between then and now some folks were claiming that the founders wanted to restrict the Federal Government from regulating oppression, and Lincoln dug up facts that revealed their arguments as lies. The South got violent largely because they were already a violent place that used slavery and oppression as a pillar of their economy. And the notion that the words of Jefferson might apply to women and blacks was foreign to their worldview. The logic was as incontrovertible then as it is now, and the tyranny of a corporation moving a factory to China so they can pay slave wages to their employees is every bit as much tyranny as that of slaveholders. "Power exercised,...for private, separate advantage" [John Locke]. And Sensatta is being outsourced to China by Bain Capital which is doing the buyout and outsourcing. Blind trust? Wanna buy a bridge? This needs to be debated
The workers at Freeport might have thought that accepting to work for a non-union operation would protect them from outsourcing, but no it didn't. Huffington post reports that:
"several workers from Sensata have pleaded with the former Massachusetts governor to intervene at the private equity firm and prevent the offshoring of their jobs, so far without success."
Romney claims that he can't intervene because of his blind trust, but that is a lie. He has his personal Lawyer running the trust with the power of client confidentiality. I don't believe for a second that if he thought an investment was a loser he wouldn't intervene. This is his philosophy. He's said he'd have preferred Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation) for Detroit [City and the Automobile industry]. He is darwinist about economics. His vision of free enterprise is that the strong survive and the losers don't count. This is what he said to his wealthy backers in Florida last year, and he's repeated it in debates.
Clearly Americans need to see where this debate is heading. Jobs don't magically appear when we are competing with folks paid far less than we are paid, even educated people, and policies and laws that give all the advantages to oligarchs and corporate monarchs. And a Takeover Artist is not going to fix something he makes all his money from.
We should all support the petition to get them to debate in Freeport Illinois on outsourcing. If Romney won't show up, Obama should anyway;
The Freeport City Council passed a resolution Monday, July 16, urging former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, to take a stand for the 170 American workers facing outsourcing by Bain Capital-owned Sensata Technologies in Freeport. The resolution passed unanimously in an 8-0 vote.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/248/656/093/obamaromney-debate-in-freeport-illinois-on-outsourcing/
The workers at Sensata in Freeport are protesting. And the full power of the state is enforcing the private power of corporate tyrants. Do we stand for this, or do we stand up for ourselves.
Six people were arrested Wednesday morning at a north central Illinois plant run by Bain Capital-owned Sensata Technologies, where 170 workers are set to lose their jobs by the end of the year.
If Obama doesn't mention Freeport and Sensata between now and Monday, we need to pressure him too. Thom Hartman's "Brunch with Bernie" segment today had him reminding us that we need to support Obama for reelection, but also pressure him on the issues of importance to all of us. Stopping outsourcing, and making it unprofitable to eff our workers ought to be a priority. It is amazing that a man who has every intention to eff all of us is running for President. I just wish more people understood what is happening.
We need to demand respect, work to earn those demands by working our tails off, and to stop standing aside and letting those who would be tyrants instead of people with a trust from us, run us over and dictate to us.
- Further reading:
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/bain-capital-sensata-six-arrests_n_1974554.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
- Mitt profits as workers are effed:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/15/1144723/-Mitt-Romney-profits-as-Bain-sends-American-jobs-to-China
- CNN visits Freeport
- This article has good details:
- http://www.politicolnews.com/romney-dumps-sensata-stock-to-his-charity-to-avoid-tax-in-2011-returns/
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