Carrier Quietly Outsources Jobs to Mexico | USW |
After winning the election, Trump and then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence announced with much fanfare in late November that they had reached a deal with Carrier to keep around 1,000 jobs at the company’s Indianapolis plant.
Just after the election and before his inauguration, Trump held a huge rally in Indianapolis as part of his post-election “thank you” tour . In the speech, he said he was thankful for the “two massive victories, one after another” and took credit for saving the Carrier jobs, asking the crowd, “isn’t is nice to win?” The Carrier deal was seen by his supporters as proof that the incoming president’s business savvy was enough to keep American jobs from being outsourced.
Following the Carrier announcement, he warned that business that left the United States would face a heavy tax, up to 35%.
Now, six months into his presidency, Trump doesn’t appear to be making good on that promise
Today, 338 employees will be let go from their jobs at the Indianapolis plant in the first wave of cuts at Carrier. In total, 630 people will lose their jobs by the end of the year as Carrier relocates their fan coil production to Mexico. Additionally, Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies Corp., is still forging ahead with their plans to close the Huntington, Indiana plant, affecting around 700 workers – all these jobs, heading to Mexico without any repercussion.
Since the election, Trump has established a pattern of taking credit for saving or creating jobs that his deals had nothing to do with. For example, Trump took credit for a statement in a press release written by Toyota announcing that it is spending $1.3 billion at a Kentucky plant that will build its new Camry. “Toyota’s decision to invest $1.3 billion in their Kentucky plant is further evidence that manufacturers are now confident that the economic climate has greatly improved under my administration,” reads the Trump quote in the press release. But the company made clear that the news is not related to his administration. In fact, Toyota began preparing for manufacturing the new Camry during President Obama’s term.
And while Trump and Pence took credit for saving Carrier’s Indianapolis plant, current union chief Robert James told the Indianapolis Star that sentiments among the workers aren’t optimistic at all.
“They just don’t have any faith in this plant staying in Indianapolis,” James said. “There’s just too much uncertainty.”
In sum, about 800 American jobs are being saved, but another 1,300 are disappearing, as acknowledged in a letter Carrier sent to affected workers that was posted to Twitter by Indianapolis-based journalist Rafael Sánchez.
From my previous diary and IMF lowering economic perspective for the U.S. …
○ Europe’s Socialism Beats IMF Forecast …
IMF: The rest of the world is picking up the economic slack as US looks weaker | CNBC |
Despite cutting the economic growth outlook for the U.S. and U.K., the International Monetary Fund kept its global growth forecast unchanged on expectations the euro zone and Japanese growth would accelerate.
In the July update of its World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecast global economic growth of 3.5 percent for 2017 and 3.6 percent for 2018, unchanged from its April outlook.
That was despite earlier cutting its U.S. growth projection to 2.1 percent from 2.3 percent for 2017 and to 2.1 percent from 2.5 percent for 2018, citing both weak growth in the first quarter of this year as well as the assumption that fiscal policy will be less expansionary than previously expected.
A weaker-than-expected first quarter also spurred the IMF to cut its forecast for U.K. growth for this year to 1.7 percent from 2.0 percent, while leaving its 2018 forecast at 1.5 percent.
But slowdowns in the U.S. and U.K. were expected to be offset by increased forecasts for many euro area countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, where first quarter growth largely beat expectations, the IMF said.
IMF retains India growth outlook; China, Eurozone bright spots