Carrier plant moves forward with planned job cuts

President Donald Trump often points to a deal he helped negotiate with a Carrier manufacturing plant in Indiana as proof that he's stopping companies from moving American jobs to Mexico.

However, starting this July, Carrier, which produces cooling and heating equipment, will lay off 632 Indiana employees as it moves its fan coil operations to Mexico.

Some of Trump's critics say this cuts against his promise to save the Carrier plant.

"Turns out those Carrier jobs are moving to Mexico anyway," tweeted Vox writer Matthew Yglesias June 22.

"The vaunted 'Carrier deal' didn't last a year," tweeted Noah Rothman, associate editor at Commentary magazine, also on June 22.

But these particular job losses were always going to happen, and Carrier made that fact known at the same time it announced the deal.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the former Indiana governor, announced the agreement with Carrier Nov. 29, keeping Carrier's gas furnace plant in Indiana and saving about 800 jobs that the company says otherwise would have been relocated to Mexico. The state of Indiana vowed to give the company $7 million in tax incentives over a decade, and the company agreed to invest $16 million in keeping the company in the state.

However, Carrier said at the time that it would still move its fan coil operation to Mexico.

"While this announcement is good news for many, we recognize it's not good news for everyone," said a Dec. 1 company memo. "We are moving forward with previously announced plans to relocate the fan coil manufacturing lines, with expected completion by the end of 2017."

In May 2017, Carrier specified that relocating the fan coil operations to Mexico would result in 632 job losses in Indiana. That doesn't affect the approximately 800 jobs Trump's deal preserved.

"There has been no change in our previously announced plans," said Seth Martin, a Carrier representative.

Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Union 1999, which represents the Carrier workers, said Trump's rhetoric might have misled Carrier workers into thinking that more jobs would be preserved.

The Trump administration said the deal would save more than 1,000 jobs, yet that count includes about 300 administrative and engineering jobs that Carrier never planned to move out of the country, on top of the 800 jobs the deal actually preserved.

"To a degree he has partially kept (his promise)," James said. "You know, it's just that the statement he made when he was here in Indiana was misleading."

We previously rated Trump's promise to keep the Carrier plant in Indiana a Promise Kept because Carrier decided to reverse, in part, its plan to move some of its operations to Mexico, preserving about 800 jobs. We knew at the time that a different set of workers would still lose their jobs as Carrier moved fan coil manufacturing lines to Mexico in 2017.

Nothing material has changed since we last wrote about this in January, except we know exactly how many workers will be laid off, 632. Our rating remains a Promise Kept.