Layoffs Begin Next Month at the Site of Trump’s Famed Carrier Deal

Trump at Carrier last December. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Less than a month after his election and aching to show America what he could do, then–President-elect Trump struck a deal with a Carrier plant in Indiana that would see 1,100 jobs remain in the U.S. The company, Trump said at a rally after the deal was announced, had seen the light and would not send the jobs building heater and air conditioners to Mexico.

He spoke too soon. “The jobs are still leaving,” Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, told CNBC. “Nothing has stopped.”

By the end of the year, Carrier will have laid off 600 workers from the plant and moved the work to Mexico. That will leave the Indianapolis plant with 730 manufacturing workers — significantly fewer than the 1,100 jobs Trump said were staying in the U.S. The plant will also continue to employ several hundred technical workers who were never slated to lose their jobs. In exchange for keeping the factory open, Carrier is getting $7 million in tax incentives.

The 600 soon-to-be ex-employees are supposed to be offered positions at other Carrier facilities in the country, but union officials tell CNBC that those offers haven’t been made. All they know is that 338 jobs will be cut next month, followed by another 290 three days before Christmas.

A secondary part of the deal Trump struck with the company called on Carrier to invest $16 million in the Indiana factory. This, Trump said, would lead to more jobs. “The 1,100 is going to be a minimum number.”

That was wrong too. The $16 million has been earmarked for increased factory automation.

Layoffs Begin Next Month at the Site of Trump’s Carrier Deal