Forced Reckoning: The Detailed Truth About How Mitt Romney’s Business Skeletons Became Barack Obama’s Winning Strategy

J. Randy Johnson has given us a book that not only tells in vivid detail the tale of one man’s evolution from rank-and-file union member to labor activist to unexpected political star, but also offers a first-hand account of the dangers and long-term consequences of unbridled greed.

Forced Reckoning is a story that needed to be told, and one to which many workers, sadly, can relate. The book is a must-read for any American concerned about the effects of income inequality, unemployment, and economic crisis on the future of this country.

When his vulture capital firm, Bain Capital, bought the Indiana factory where Randy worked in 1994, Mitt Romney got far more than he bargained for. Randy and his co-workers stood up and fought back in an attempt to preserve not just their jobs, but their entire community and a middle-class way of life. Their fight led them across the country to Massachusetts, where Romney was engaged in a bitter political battle with Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

The fight to save the Indiana factory, while unsuccessful in its short-term goal, led Randy to an expanded role as a union leader and, finally, as a Democratic Party champion dedicated to telling the truth about the impact of the avarice and indifference of Romney and his associates on many Americans. We know how that story ended in 2012, with Romney unmasked as an elitist and President Barack Obama decisively re-elected.

While Mitt Romney was building massive wealth in his slash-and-burn role with Bain Capital, Randy Johnson was helping to build a massive movement of American workers in his role as an up-and-coming union leader.

Forced Reckoning is a true David vs. Goliath story. It offers us a very real blueprint as we struggle to re-take the reins of power from the super-rich and place them back where they belong, in the hands the people, using the best tools at our disposal: hard work, perseverance, and above all, solidarity forever.

— Leo W. Gerard,

USW International President

CHAPTER 1

Adapting to Factory Life

Raising a family in 1986 brought about interesting challenges for me. Married for a second time, everyday living became more than just the average busy lifestyle. I’m sure that other people have known and experienced the unique problems involved when it comes to having a broken family. Even though I tried, I could not be everywhere, nor could I do everything necessary to be the perfect dad.

My extended family, in-laws and grandparents, did the best they could. My ex-wife had tragically been killed in a car accident, and my parents were raising two of my children, John, 12, and Jennifer, 11. I always made sure that my children were able to see all of their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins on a regular basis, since they had lost their mother six years earlier.

I believe that I’m a positive person. I think that most readers of this book will understand and relate to how difficult it can be to stay upbeat with the pressures of daily life.

In 1986, I turned 32 years old, and I felt that my life mirrored that of other young husbands, except that at that time, I found myself unemployed. For the most part, my loving wife, Rita, who was 26, supported our family. Along with our two daughters Jill, age 6, and Julie, age 5, we resided in Huntington, Indiana, where a majority of Rita’s family and friends lived and worked.

I had tried different jobs but hadn’t made a go of it. I even tried my hand at selling insurance and financial investments after taking the tests to be licensed to sell these products. I found this to be a tough job, but I educated myself about investments and the way they work. I never made a steady income doing this. I usually made a decent income one month and little the next.

I looked for a job that fit my skills and abilities. I had grown up working at my father’s full-service gas station in Bloomfield, Indiana, and working on my grandfather’s farm outside of town. At the time, I was small in stature at five-feet, eight-inches tall and 125 pounds. I had always loved hard, physical labor and the feeling of accomplishment it brought. Some of my past jobs had included installing heating and cooling systems, installing insulation, and installing wiring in older homes, which got quite hot in the summer in attics and crawl spaces under homes.

I created a resume in the hope of landing a good job, and I applied for numerous factory jobs. Then, in February of 1986 my efforts were rewarded. I received a call from someone in the personnel department of SCM Office Supplies, in Marion, Indiana, to interview for a factory job that offered decent benefits, a fair starting wage, overtime, and a retirement plan once a person completed a 90-day probation period. I really wanted that job.

And I got hired. I initially trained on the day shift, after which I worked the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift.

This schedule brought a new set of obstacles to my home life. Rita and I had always tried to have at least the evening meal with the kids. A family dinner meant an opportunity to listen to each other’s problems and discuss what the needs of our two girls at home might be. But the new shift hours, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., never allowed me to be home during the week.

I think most parents understand the importance of family and the quality time that is needed for the development of their children. It took an effort by everyone in our family to make sure that we found some time to communicate.

Rita had her hands full working full-time and handling the evening parenting duties to our children during the work week. After I completed my 90 day probation period on the new job, I worked all of the overtime available, making my time even shorter with Rita and the girls. I think my family did a fantastic job as I look back on it now.

I still had concerns about seeing my two older children, John and Jennifer, who lived with my dad, Johnny, and my mom, Wanda, in Bloomfield, Indiana, more than 200 miles away. On as many weekends as possible, I visited them and sometimes took them to see Rita, Jill, and Julie at our home. During the summer they stayed with us for a week at a time. On holidays, I felt responsible to make sure that all of the children saw every set of grandparents in their extended family. Complications in this regard involved travel and the weather, along with scheduling, particularly at Christmas. I am proud to say that I took seriously the need to have the children see their relatives no matter the distance involved.

I look back on those times as stressful but rewarding, seeing the children grow, while hoping, as parents do, that I did my part in raising them to be of high moral character but also exposing them to all facets of life. Every parent knows these feelings as a child grows from an infant to an adult. Even though I was not a religious person at that time, I often offered up a silent prayer entreating the Lord for needed guidance during these trying years.

CHAPTER 2

Balancing Life in the Fast Lane

After a year or so of making a decent wage, I concentrated on spending my time with my family, working, and on my favorite hobby, racing sprint cars. Sprint cars are raced at speedways in Indiana as well as at speedways across the country. My father Johnny and my Uncle Mike were deeply involved in the sport, and I craved spending time at the racetracks with them.

I am elated to say that Dad and Mike distinguished themselves by being inducted into the Hoosier Auto Racing Fans (HARF) Hall of Fame on January 27, 2013. They were inducted just in time for me to add this information to this book. It is a distinct honor to be voted into the Hall of Fame by those who love the sport of racing. The competition to get into the HARF Hall of Fame is fierce, and getting in is not easy. Johnny and Mike Johnson had their names added to this list of select individuals from the racing community.

Racing had always been an important part of my life. Since my mother and father had their first date at a racetrack back in 1953, maybe I really had no choice but to love the sport.

The racing community is a family of sorts, in that those who participate do help each other, and they work to promote the sport together. But because it was a competition, we had an occasional spat, like families do.

I am so lucky to have had the chance to race with my father and my son John. The experience of three generations competing on the track at the same time is priceless to me. I won my last main event race in 2006, but I still competed as much as possible during the 2013 season. I’m afraid that the years and my health may now be limiting my ability to race. My time as a driver might soon be over, but it sure has been fun.

From 1987 to 1996, I had to work at balancing my time between all of the things that I wanted to do and all of the things that I needed to do for my family and at work. A steep learning curve came with this balancing act. It was so easy to want something badly, but sometimes the cost was just too high.

I recall racing on Sunday nights and driving straight to work to get there by eleven o’clock for the start of my shift. Somehow I always managed to survive those long nights, even on four or five hours of sleep, because I had raced on Saturday night as well.

By the time the summer of 1991 rolled around, and after much discussion with Rita about the needs of our family, I began to race less and worked more overtime to meet the rising cost of raising our children. Jill and Julie, now ages 11 and 10, needed more costly items for school, as do all young ladies.

Rita did have some rules, and she insisted on family mealtime. For one meal a day, Rita and I did our best to make sure that everyone in the family sat down together to eat. We discovered that discussions about our children’s daily lives provided valuable insight for us. Along with life in general, money was one of the main topics of conversations during mealtime.

Our lives improved, and we found ourselves able to afford more of the items on our family wish list. Rita had enrolled in college in 1990, and she had begun a four-year journey to earn an associate’s degree while working full-time. The children also became more involved in activities outside of school, and like most American parents, we worked to adjust our schedules to accommodate those activities.

We had our squabbles too. We taught our kids to speak their minds. Even when they didn’t get their own way, we ascertained more about their lives through open communication.

Readers should not take this as an example of perfect parenting. As young adults back then, we faced the same problems that parents who had come before us had in raising a family. I do not believe that one size fits all, but I do believe that with communication and love it is possible to achieve mutual trust and build family values.

After being hired in 1986 to perform general laborer-type work, which is the way that most people typically went to work at SCM Office Supplies, I advanced and was trained to operate various machines throughout the plant. By 1992, I found myself working closely with my co-workers on most of the production lines at the plant. Since I had never done production-type work in any previous employment, this was somewhat of an adjustment of my mindset.

I signed up for voluntary overtime, and I took pride in my work because the next person on the production line checked the quality of my work. One process led to another until we produced a quality final product. At times I noticed that the person making the least amount of money often spotted a problem first, and we then worked together to correct it as soon as possible, even if it meant shutting down equipment to fix it. As a machine operator, I had the responsibility of producing superior products. I left work with pride, knowing that we had met customer demand for a top-notch product.

CHAPTER 3

SCM Office Supplies

At SCM Office Supplies, hourly workers had worked with more than 60 years of union representation by the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) based out of Nashville, Tennessee, and these workers were part of amalgamated local union Local 154. Amalgamated simply means that a group of union-represented workers from different locations and usually different companies come together to make a stronger local union by sharing resources.

During the 60 years of union representation, a strong family-type relationship had become the norm among the workers at SCM. I recollect the company celebrating 100 years in business in Marion, Indiana, and the gifts given to employees to commemorate the occasion.

Needless to say, my co-workers became family to me, some like real brothers and sisters, even though as union folk we generally spoke of union brother or sister in meetings and presentations. Senior members of the union became more like mothers and fathers, showing newer workers how to do their jobs both safely and with quality in mind.

Management generally left the workers alone to run production and maintain quality, but on occasion, a serious problem might arise, and things got intense as everyone tried to figure out how best to fix the issue. SCM had a group of skilled maintenance people, and they knew the equipment inside out and could normally keep it running. Sometimes we reached a point where the equipment had to be torn apart and re-assembled to fix a problem. But we always strived to make a first-rate product and kept the plant running.

Hanson Industries purchased SCM at some point and then later sold it to Smith Corona Corporation, which created a separate division for SCM, with its own president and management team. All personnel files, medical records, and such were kept locally in the plant’s front office, where salesmen also came and went regularly.

The business bustled along quite well. Products made at SCM Office Supplies could be used both at home and in the office: different kinds of tablets, file folders, index cards, and hanging file folders.

On rare occasions, SCM lost a customer, such as Staples, Office Depot, or Walmart. This forced a layoff of workers for a short period of time. The longest that I recall ever being laid off was five months, from October 1988 to March 1989.

SCM management and the skilled salespersons employed there worked tirelessly to win customers back through competitive pricing and by producing quality products. I don’t remember foreign competition ever being mentioned as a reason for losing a customer. The competition was generally between companies in the United States.

Even though my wages seemed good, I did not get paid as well as the workers at other companies near the SCM plant. The SCM plant sat on a corner lot on a state highway. Across the road was a General Motors stamping plant, where employees made better wages and had excellent benefits. Also, behind the SCM plant stood a Dana facility that made driveline parts for cars and trucks that paid its employees more money and offered them much better benefits. It is safe to say that the workers at SCM could not have been considered overpaid or greedy. We only wanted a decent standard of living.

All of these plants kept the mom and pop businesses in the area running, as workers spent money at restaurants, bars, Laundromats, dry cleaners, convenience stores, bowling alleys, credit unions, banks, and pizza delivery places. As history shows, when jobs are lost there is always some impact on businesses within a community.

CHAPTER 4

The Making of a Union Leader

I think that this chapter may have been one of the most difficult for me to write. I hope that I have written about myself in a factual way and not in a self-promoting or arrogant way. By nature I tend to be a reserved person, but I am always willing to step up to do the right thing when needed. I appreciate the accolades when I am told that I have done a job well, and I feel the hurt when I let someone down.

I took pride in my work, as my responsibilities grew at SCM when I advanced through diverse positions. I had to figure out the operation of different types of machines. My knowledge of the wide-range of products produced was expanded immensely during these early years at SCM.

I had begun on third shift in 1986, working as a slicer on the glued pad line. I sliced writing pads apart from large stacks that had been glued along one edge. I then put the stacks of writing pads into a cutting machine to be trimmed, cut, and packed by a wrapping machine. This produced the final product that anyone could purchase at any office supply store.

Maintaining a steady pace to keep production on schedule was strenuous work. As time went on, I was also taught how to glue the stacks of writing pads. After a bit more time, I trained on both the cutting machine and the wrapping machine. I had the skills at that point to do any of the work on the glued pad line.

SCM had numerous production lines throughout the plant, set up by product, such as a production line for glued pads, another for stapled pads, and still another for file folders and hanging file folders, and so on. No matter what production line one might be assigned to, it required at least one person to pack the finished products into cartons for shipping.

During the first seven years that I worked at SCM, I volunteered or bid on jobs throughout the plant. The local union at SCM had negotiated an agreement that allowed a person to bid on a different job if one wanted to every six months. The agreement outlined the process for bidding and how a person might get the job. Simply put, if I bid on a job and I had worked at SCM the longest of those bidding for the position, I likely would advance to the position.

In the early part of 1990, while working in the position of index card machine operator on second shift, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., Dave Clymer, an officer in the union, approached me and suggested that I become a shop union steward. Workers rarely encountered union issues on second shift, so he easily convinced me that I could handle the responsibility of being the union representative on second shift.

I did take the steward’s position but with a request that I be sent by the union to shop steward school for training. I wanted to have all the relevant skills to be a shop steward. A shop steward’s main responsibility was grievance handling, and a grievance was filed when the company violated some part of the labor agreement with the union. The shop steward needed to be able to communicate well with union members and company management.

I was scheduled to attend shop steward training the following year. As luck would have it, I