The Ampad Strike in Marion

SCM had a paper plant in Marion, Indiana, that has been there since I was a kid. When SCM went into decline in the 1990's, it sold the paper plant in 1994 to Ampad, which at the time was run by Bain Capital. Ampad dealt with the 200+ workers of the plant in such a bad way — firing them, then rehiring them at lower pay and lesser benefits, then refusing to recognize their union — that the workers went on strike. The local citizens so backed the strikers that Ampad found only a dozen people who would work as scabs. And this was at a time of plant closings in the area. Even when I was out of work, I would sooner starve to death than break a picket line.

In the end, after nearly a year, Ampad gave up and closed the plant, taking the equipment with it. The workers were without jobs, but in time they were avenged. Due mainly to Bain Capital milking the company for fees and making it buy out losing firms, Ampad declared bankrupcy in 1999 and was sold off as an empty shell. (The company has since been revived; but to this day I do not buy paper with the Ampad logo.)

There are people — a certain Republican presidential candidate for one — who would rather that you and I forget what happened in Marion. The local paper wants us to forget it, too; but then the local paper is run by a bunch of low-grade rightists out of Kentucky, so its opinion is worthless from the get-go. And there are apelings out there who speak lies, that to talk about the Ampad incident is to stand against free enterprise and the free markets — as if Bain and other elements of finance capitalism have anything to do with either.

The apelings can lie and dissemble all they want. They cannot change history. They cannot change the loss of two hundred jobs because Bain/Ampad refused to deal fairly with the workers. They cannot change the loss of Ampad itself after Bain sucked it dry. And they cannot change the fact that the fox who ran Bain Capital is less fit to assume the presidency than Obama, than Paul, or than even Perry or Gingrich.