Valerie Bruton: I really feel like people need to know what Mitt Romney did to Marion,
Indiana, in 1994.
Randy Johnson: The average person in the Marion area would say they were middle-income to
lower-income.
But we had good jobs that you could raise a family on.
The plant that I worked at was right over here.
SCM produced office supply products.
We made tablets, file folders, index cards, calendars.
Anything that you can use in an office or around the household.
It was a lot of work!
But you felt like you really accomplished something.
Valerie Bruton: I really can't explain it.
My hands can explain it, for all these calluses -
[Voice of Valerie] When you make a product, and you know it's the best you can do - it
feels good.
Jerry Rayburn: Good paying job with good benefits - I loved working with the people I worked
with.
I thought I was settled in for life.
Newscaster: Until early July, workers were employed by SCM, an office product supplier.
But then the company was sold to Ampad.
Former Employee: One day we had a job, the next day we didn't.
Randy Johnson: We'd been bought and sold in the past.
We never had a problem.
We were always a business that had value.
Sharon Bennett: And when the Bain Capitol boys, and Ampad, came in, it was a whole different
story.
They put armed guards up at the doors, they didn't look at anyone.
They didn't speak to anybody, they just told us we were all fired.
Jerry Rayburn: I understand if you gotta cut back or lay off, I mean, that's part of the
business.
We've accepted that over the years we were there.
But you don't come in and just take everything that everybody's got, and destroy a business.
I mean, that's what they did.
We were a nice, strong, healthy company.
We were making money.
And for them to just come out from nowhere and to shut the place down... it was devastating.
Newscaster: When Ampad bought the former SCM plant, it abruptly fired all 350 workers.
The union says it reduced wages and benefits.
Jerry Rayburn: The first thing they did was knock the pay down.
We got people in here, uh, that went back to wages they made 14 years ago.
They took our benefits.
We didn't have any more retirement.
And Bain, Mitt Romney - they did not care about us as workers.
They were looking at the mighty Dollar.
Valerie Bruton: When I look at that clipping that I have in the paper of the closing.
That's where it all started for me.
That was the worst day of my life.
At the time all this happened, I was pregnant, had two kids at home, and had just lost my
job.
Jerry Rayburn From week to week, I didn't know what I was gonna do.
I was barely getting by, groceries were getting thin.
Valerie Bruton: When SCM shut the doors, that was the first time I'd ever been in the system
with food stamps.
Then I had to get on Medicaid.
It was rough, but I did it.
I had no choice because I had my babies, my babies depended on me.
That was the most degrading thing.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's there for a reason.
But I never, in my whole life, ever think that I would have to resort to that.
Because I wasn't raised like that.
My parents instilled in me: you give it 110% of whatever you do in life.
So when you're not raised with getting public asisstance, that was very devastating to me.
Randy Johnson: As a leader, because that was my job, too.
When you have to sit there and watch the people's faces, and they're looking to you for the
answers,
They just break down.
And it'll choke you up.
It's real.
Sharon Bennett: I had my electricity turned off and my heat turned off, and they were
threatening to take my car.
I was scared.
I mean, it affects every aspect of your life.
Newscaster: And as for Ampad's side of this story..
Security Guard: No comment, that's what I was told
Interviewer: No interviews?
(no) No responses?
(no) No comments?
(No comment) Nothing at all?
Security Guard: That's what I was just told.
I'm just doing what I'm told.
Jerry Rayburn: To me, Mitt Romney takes from the poor and the middle-class and gives to
the rich.
He's just the opposite of Robin Hood.
And just think - We're talking about just the companies.
But how many businesses associated with those companies?
How many Mom-n-Pop shops?
How many restaurants?
How many little bars and things like that around these plants?
How many small communities were devastated?
It didn't just stop, you know, with the worker.
Jerry Rayburn: It makes me sick to my stomach when I sit there and watch Mitt Romney tell
the American people how he creates all these jobs.
Valerie Burton: They're not jobs for a middle-class person.
I mean, you would have to work his job - and two other jobs - just to maintain.
Sharon Bennett: You can tell by the way he acts, the way he talks.
He doesn't care anything about the middle-class or the lower-class people.
Randy Johnson: Mitt Romney's philosophy for doing business is to take over companies
just to get some money.
Then dump the business no matter what.
If that's his approach to the American economy, I can't imagine it being very pretty for the
workers.
Every person that's on the lower scale right now wants to work to the middle income.
And they'll work their tail off in this country to do it.
And, if Mitt Romney's in charge, I don't know whether they're going to get the opportunity
at all.