Unions vow to crank up the heat on buyout firms

By Joseph A. Giannone

NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) - After years of quietly reaping windfall riches, private equity managers now find themselves under siege by bond buyers, hard-bargaining stock holders and lawmakers seeking higher taxes.

And now labor unions are jumping in.

While more than a hundred bankers and investors attended a dealmaker conference at the New York Stock Exchange, two union groups on Wednesday brought a handful of people to protest the growing and, in their view, unchecked power of these well-heeled and secretive investment firms.

"America is waking up to the fact that private equity is everywhere and it has huge impact not only on the economy but workers and communities," said Andrew McDonald, director of the private equity campaign for the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, which represents 1.8 million workers.

The service workers union, together with the labor-affiliated Working Families Party, plan to host protests this summer, raise awareness of deals they say hurt workers and issue critical reports about investment firms like Bain Capital.

Buyout firms have been active for more than 20 years, but in recent months they have become a kitchen table issue.

The billions of dollars of wealth generated by Blackstone Group (BX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for its founders during last week's initial public offering and the takeover of iconic companies like Chrysler have helped raise the public profile of close-to-the-vest investors.

"It can't be private anymore. It has to be public," said Dan Cantor, executive director of Working Families Party, during the demonstration on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street.