People will remember when Donald Trump campaigned at the Carrier heating and air conditioning plant in Indiana in 2016, proclaiming “American jobs should stay in America.”
And under pressure from Trump, late in 2016, Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies Corp, dropped their plan to close the Indiana plant and move 1,400 jobs to Mexico.
And in return, Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence made a deal with Carrier to keep about half of the jobs at the plant, giving the company $7.0 million in state tax breaks to stay in in the state.
Seeking Alpha reports that Chuck Jones, the former president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, says voters in the Midwest “helped elect Trump because of promises he made that included ending offshoring, and he mentioned Carrier by name many times.”
At the time, Trump praised the deal with Carrier, Tweeting that he saved 1,100 jobs, and this was a model of how he would push American companies to keep jobs in the country.
But Carrier, like Ford Motor Company and other automobile manufacturers, has since the election, changed their stance on Trump’s “protectionism” policy.
Upholding the deal
Carrier said earlier this week they would keep 1.100 employees at the Indiana plant, upholding their deal with Trump. The employees staying include 730 manufacturing jobs and about 300 engineering and administrative positions that were never slated to move anyway, according to Reuters.
However, Carrier also laid off 338 manufacturing workers in July and another 215 this week. Those jobs are going to the company’s plant in Monterrey, Mexico, where workers make about $3 an hour.
“Yes he (Trump) saved jobs, yes he did. But he didn’t save mine, he didn’t save manufacturing jobs. He saved office personnel, okay?” said Renee Elliott, 45, who supported Trump in the 2016 election and was among those being laid off on Thursday.
Elliott is very disappointed in Trump and complains that he didn’t make a good enough deal. She remembers when Trump came through the plant with the cameras whirling, shaking hands with workers and telling them the deal was “very exciting.”
Trump said, “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen.”
“It was like royalty coming here, we knew the world was watching,” Elliott said. “He’s walking through and we’re in awe, like ‘Savior!’. That’s the way we’re looking at it. He led us to believe that we were all going to be saved.”
Added to the news is finding out another United Technologies facility two hours away in Huntington, Indiana, is closing in 2018, also sending its operations to Monterrey. A company spokeswoman said close to 400 workers were laid off in 2017 and another 230 will be laid off this year.
