'We feel betrayed': Former union boss calls out Donald Trump over Carrier promises in op-ed
Justin L. Mack
A year after President Donald Trump announced that he saved Carrier Corp. employees from losing their jobs to Mexico, a former union boss who has publicly feuded with Trump says employees are still waiting for the victory they were promised.
In an op-ed piece published Wednesday by The Washington Post, Chuck Jones recalls the president-elect standing before cheering workers and declaring that he had saved the day.
Jones, former president of United Steel Workers Local 1999, called it a "symbolic moment that cemented Trump’s campaign image as a working-class champion — a blue-collar billionaire who would stand with workers, not CEOs."
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But Jones said workers have been fed empty promises as many prepare to be let go by the company. Carrier expects to lay off 215 people in January, down from its last estimate of 275. That would bring the total number of layoffs to 553 for the year, down from a previous figure of 660. The company in a statement said it reduced the number of layoffs because of attrition.
"A year later, we feel betrayed ... the workers at Carrier aren’t the only ones who feel victimized by Trump’s false promises," Jones writes. "United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, is laying off another 700 workers right up the road from the Carrier plant in Huntington. And Rexnord, another plant in Indianapolis, just closed its doors, too.
"Workers at both plants hoped that Trump would come to the rescue, but he never showed up."
Jones says the betrayal goes beyond Indiana, stating that workers nationwide feel like they too are victims of a "false Trumpian bargain, in which they were invited to trade their votes to keep their jobs."
"In fact, according to new research conducted by Good Jobs Nation, more than 91,000 jobs have been sent overseas since Trump was elected, the highest rate of jobs lost to outsourcing in five years," Jones writes. "This summer, I traveled across the Midwest, from Indianapolis to Kalamazoo to Racine, to talk with hundreds of manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to foreign countries. Many of them (some wearing “Make America Great Again” hats) agreed that Trump hasn’t lived up to his end of the deal."
Jones continues, saying that workers know that Trump has the power to stop offshoring, and that as president of the United States, he can tell federal contractors like United Technologies that tax dollars will not fund corporations that continue to offshore jobs.
He then criticized Trump for not taking action. He writes that of the more than 100 executive orders signed since Trump took office, none of them have been focused on stopping offshoring by federal contractors.
"Last year, after Trump announced his Carrier 'victory,' I decided that I had to speak out," Jones writes. "I said that 'Trump was lying his a‑‑ off' about saving all the Carrier jobs: We had met with Carrier hours before Trump’s speech, and they gave us the job numbers they expected to preserve, but when Trump got on stage, he gave wildly inflated numbers.
"A year after his election, Trump continues to lie about his commitment to saving jobs at Carrier or anywhere else. And workers are taking note."
Call IndyStar reporter Justin L. Mack at (317) 444-6138 or email him at justin.mack@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @justinlmack.