Last December, President-elect Donald Trump held a much-hyped press conference at the Carrier Corporation in Indiana, announcing he’d saved the plant and thousands of manufacturing jobs.
Carrier last year announced plans to move all of its Indianapolis operations to Monterrey, Mexico, and close the west-side factory. The pending layoffs became a flashpoint during the presidential election when United Technologies announced it would cut 2,100 jobs in Indiana. Trump slammed the decision on the campaign trail and threatened to "tax the hell" out of Carrier's products.
An agreement brokered after the election by Trump and then-Gov. Mike Pence resulted in a commitment from Carrier to keep the plant open for 10 years. Despite the agreement, Carrier is still moving its fan coil production from Indianapolis to Mexico.
Despite the $7 million tax break Trump and Pence negotiated for the Carrier Corp., the layoffs continued. Carrier let 300 employees go in July and now comes word they are gearing up for yet another round of layoffs:
Carrier Corp., the HVAC manufacturer that had planned to move its operations to Mexico before President Trump staged a much-heralded intervention, said Tuesday it is gearing up for yet another round of layoffs.
Less than four months after it laid off nearly 340 employees at its Indianapolis factory, Carrier announced that 215 more employees will be terminated on Jan. 11.
The company said in a statement that it had originally planned to lay off 275 employees on Dec. 22, but decided to reduce the size of the layoff and delay the timing because of voluntary employee attrition.
Sorry, Carrier employees. You’ve been conned by the Don.
“Trump came in there to the factory last December and blew smoke up our asses,” Brenda Darlene Battle, a twenty-five-year Carrier employee, said. “He wasn’t gonna save those jobs.”