Carrier braces for 600-person layoff just 6 months after Trump touted the company as a job policy victory

Carrier logo.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

From the get-go, President Trump's so-called "Carrier deal" has not lived up to its expectations. In December, the then-president-elect promised to save 1,100 jobs at the air conditioner and furnace manufacturing plant that had been slated to go to Mexico in return for $7 million in state financial incentives.

In reality, only 730 union jobs were preserved. Fast-forward a few months, and now more than 600 employees at the Carrier plant are anticipating being laid off next month. "The jobs are still leaving," the president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, Robert James, told CNBC. "Nothing has stopped."

"To me this was just political, to make it a victory within Trump's campaign, in his eyes, that he did something great," added T.J. Bray, who has worked at Carrier for 15 years and whose seniority saved him from layoffs. "I'm very grateful that I get to keep my job, and many others, but I'm still disappointed that we're losing a lot."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In addition to the $7 million in incentives Carrier received for agreeing to employ at least 1,069 people at the plant for the next 10 years, the company vowed to invest $16 million into the Indiana-based facility. But "as for Trump's claim that the $16 million investment in the plant would add jobs, United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told CNBC in December that the money would go toward more automation in the factory and ultimately would result in fewer jobs," CNBC reports.

Indiana Economic Development Corp. president Elaine Bedel added that all of Trump's promises "really [haven't] changed anything."

"We have been doing this since 2005," she said.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.