I haven't seen any account of union strike company, so I have no comment on that. To what extent Bain may have failed in due diligence ahd so did not foresee union troubles or to what extent they merely overestimated their ability to deal with the union, I don't know.
So why was Bain making "extremely risky" (your term) investments only justified to them by the promise of gov't subsidies? The problem with government subsidies is that they tend to be ill-thought-out or precisely designed to reward the politically connected -- or both. Also, the gov't is playing (as usual) with other people's (i.e., taxpayers') money.
I don't think a tunnel-vision approach to making money at whatever cost to others (or to the economy or to the country for that matter) is a conservative value, else FR would be celebrating and praising George Soros, instead of condemning him.
Technically your right... Bain provided Private Equity to most of these companies to turn them around. Most of the companies were failing or about to go bankrupt.
The union strike company was featured in the King of Bain video. Remember the strike happened after the company fired all of it’s employees and rehired them. However, once the company exceeded hiring 51% of the employees back they were forced by state laws to unionize. Immediately the union went on strike. The company closed their doors.
The second company mentioned was a steel company. The whole industry started to collapse years after Bain’s investment.
The companies that Bain invests Private Equity / Venture capital outperform the S & P four to one. Thousands of companies apply for Bain’s Private Equity money yearly. They are one of the best performing companies of this type in the nation. They meet or exceed the national average for Venture Capital / Private Equity Firms in successful outcomes.