NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | December 16 , 2016 | PAGE 9
...Trump’s Carrier deal
From Page 1
plant meeting on Facebook.
“The best way to stay com-
petitive,” says a Carrier exec to
a room full of factory workers in
the video, “is to move produc-
tion from our facility in Indi-
anapolis to Monterrey, Mexico.”
In the video, the workers erupt,
yelling and angry. The man in
the suit tells them to quiet down.
“Yeah, f**k you!” one man can
be heard yelling back.
The video went viral, getting
over 5 million views. And the
very day LaKeisha Austin
posted it, Indiana Trump sup-
porter Jack Crenshaw told visi-
tors to her Facebook feed that
they should contact Trump
about the closure.
Two months later, Trump was
at the Indiana State Fairgrounds
for a campaign rally. If he were
president, Trump said, he’d call
up the head of Carrier and
threaten to tax the hell out of
products coming back to the
United States from off-shored
factories. Other politicians want
to give incentives. Not Trump.
“There have to be conse-
quences when they leave,”
Trump declared.
Trump’s tough talk about
trade policy undoubtedly con-
tributed to his 57 percent win in
Indiana. In Ohio and Wisconsin,
up to half the voters in union
households voted for Trump, the
billionaire who had pledged to
“rip up” America’s failed trade
agreements.
After the election, Carrier
employees wondered if Trump
would remember them. Trump
saw one of them say so on the
news.
Then, in a Thanksgiving Day
tweet, Trump announced he was
in talks with Carrier. He tweeted
that he’d be returning to Indi-
anapolis to make an announce-
ment. Then he tweeted a sneak
peek of the announcement: “Big
day on Thursday for Indiana and
the great workers of that won-
derful state. We will keep our
companies and jobs in the U.S.
Thanks Carrier”
United Steelworkers Local
1999 President Chuck Jones
hadn’t voted for Trump, but he
praised the president-elect for
intervening.
United Steelworkers Local 1999 president Chuck Jones.
Then Jones, and the rest of
the world, learned the details of
the deal. So much for Mr. Tough
Guy. Gone were the threats to
“tax the hell out of” goods from
runaway factories. Trump’s deal
with Carrier would involve $7
million in state tax breaks and
training grants — the same “in-
centive” approach he had de-
rided politicians for in April.
Visiting Carrier’s Indianapo-
lis plant to make his official job-
saving announcement Dec. 1,
Trump made no mention of the
$7 million state subsidy. But he
heaped praise on the CEO of
Carrier’s parent company,
United Technologies, in front of
about 150 company supervisors
and production workers. He at-
tributed the company’s change
of heart to two other factors: A
Trump plan to lower corporate
income tax rate from 35 percent
to 15 percent, and a Trump plan
to get rid of regulations. Trump
got a lot of details wrong. He
said he’d never promised to
save the Carrier jobs [he had;
you can watch it on his own
video feed.] Several times he
said Carrier had announced the
planned closure a year and a half
ago. [It was nine months ago.]
And, even though he’d just
walked through the factory and
had negotiated a commitment to
keep it open, he seemed to think
the factory makes air condition-
ers. [Carrier makes air condi-
tioners, but its Indianapolis fac-
tory makes furnaces.] But for
Jones, the Steelworkers local
president, the biggest thing
Trump got wrong was the head-
line: that he had saved 1,100
jobs at the Carrier plant. The
truth didn’t come out until the
following day: Carrier informed
employees Dec. 2 that it still
plans to send the factory’s fan
coil assembly line to Monterrey
— and lay off 600 of the 1,400
union employees at its Indi-
anapolis factory.
The news found its way to the
Washington Post, and on Dec. 7,
Jones was interviewed on CNN
by Erin Burnett. On the show,
Jones made it clear he appreci-
ated the 800 Carrier jobs, in-
cluding 730 of his members,
that Trump had saved. But he
criticized Trump for claiming
his deal with Carrier had saved
1,100 jobs: To get to 1,100,
Trump had to count 300 engi-
neering and management jobs
that were never slated to go to
Mexico, Jones said.
“I think he’s done a lot of ne-
SEASON’s GREETINGs T0 ALL
from
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Joe Bowers - F INANCIAL S ECRETARY T REASURER /B USINESS M ANAGER
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