Carrier Union Leader: Trump Lied About ‘Laid Off’ Workers
CRAPITALISM
Chris Bergin/Reuters
On Thursday, Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers 1999 (which represents Carrier workers), continued to criticize President-elect Donald Trump for his much-publicized Carrier deal, which recent reporting has shown was largely empty hype.
“[Trump] sat down with Carrier leaders,” Jones wrote in The Washington Post. “Afterward, he announced that 1,100 jobs would be saved. When I first heard the news, I was optimistic. But I began to get nervous when we couldn’t get any details on the deal. I urged caution, but our members got their hopes up. They thought their jobs had been saved. When I met with Carrier officials last Thursday, I realized that that wouldn’t be the case. Though Trump said he’d saved 1,100 jobs, he hadn’t. Carrier told us that 550 people would get laid off.”
Jones added that “Trump let people believe that they were going to have a livelihood in that facility,” but “when I told our members [the truth] the next day, they were devastated.” The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
—Asawin Suebsaeng