Protesters Voice Concern Over Bain Buyout, Quality of Care

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Child care providers rallied with local activists outside a downtown DC Bright Horizons child care facility Thursday afternoon to demand Bain Capital – a private equity firm that recently bought out Bright Horizons – save quality of care in the District. Activists chanted “Our children deserve the finest care” and held signs saying “Our children are not for sale.” “The only thing Bain cares about is money, money, money,” said Reverend Williams Jarvis Johnson at the rally. Critics of the buyout – including the Tell Bain to Put Kids First campaign and DC Jobs with Justice, which organized Thursday’s action – argue that Bain Capital lacks experience in dealing with the child care industry and has created hundreds of millions of dollars of new debt that will hurt kids and workers at Bright Horizons. Madie Green – who has worked as a child care provider in Maryland for 25 years – voiced concern over Bain Capital’s past buyouts, including KB Toys, Dade Behring, Ampad, and others, that ended in bankruptcy, layoffs, and site closings. “Kids pay the high price of poor quality care,” added Green. “It’s time for Bain to do the right thing” and “listen to the parents and teachers who really know how to maintain quality of care,” said Dorothy Davis of DC Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Similar rallies were also held in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles Thursday. Click here to tell Bain Capital that kids and workers deserve better.
- report/photo by Andy Richards