By now, most of us know that Donald Trump’s claim that he helped save a yuuuge number of jobs at a Carrier air conditioning plant in Indianapolis doesn’t add up. For instance, as part of its deal with Trump and the Indiana state government, Carrier plans to use a multimillion-dollar investment into its plant, which will be used to help install robots to do the jobs Trump is supposedly saving. As a result, many of the 800 workers who thought their jobs were secure will still join their 500 brethren on the unemployment line.
But possibly the strongest evidence yet that Trump isn’t really a savior comes just two hours northeast. Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, also operates a plant in Huntington, southwest of Fort Wayne. Huntington is best known as the hometown of former Vice President Dan Quayle.
The UTC plant is part of the company’s electronic Controls division, and makes control panels for the furnace, air conditioning, and refrigeration industries. UTC plans to shut down the plant in 2018 and move its 700 jobs to Mexico.
And yet, Trump didn’t lift a finger to save those jobs. According to several union leaders at the plant, UTC plans to start laying off workers next spring before winding down operations altogether the following year. That doesn’t sit well with workers like Mike Harmon. He has a theory for why Trump wasn’t interested in saving his plant–it wouldn’t have looked as glamorous.
“I don’t think they look at us, being from a small town … The whole time during the campaign he talked Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indianapolis, never heard one word about Huntington.”
That’s pretty sobering, considering that Trump scored his upset victory in part by running it up in the Huntingtons of America. Like most of northeast Indiana, Huntington is redder than an Indiana Hoosiers jersey. Huntington County went for Trump over Hillary Clinton by a punishing 72-21 margin; indeed, it hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since 1964. Some reward, huh?
Harmon has had to endure two other plant closings, but this one is going to be one of the most painful. He doesn’t think he’ll find a job that will pay him anywhere near the $17 per hour he earns at UTC. With two kids in college and another in high school, he and his wife–who also works at the plant–have been forced to go beyond saving money and into “major couponing.” They’re already cutting back in non-necessities, and are putting away as much money as they can “so we can survive when we are let go.”
Like many of the workers here, Bob Breedlove voted for Trump. However, he openly admits that he’s “not crazy about this deal.” However, with something of a shrug, he concedes that his tax dollars may save the Indianapolis jobs, “but they aren’t going to save my job.” In a similar vein, Lori Guy, who works at an apartment complex where most of the Huntington plant workers live, thinks that “if there was a way,” Trump could have saved jobs at both plants as well.
There may very well have been a way. But from the looks of it, Trump didn’t try to find it. If he really was serious about saving jobs, he would have worked to save this plant as well, even if Huntington wasn’t as glitzy as Indianapolis. The fact that Trump couldn’t be bothered to save this plant only proves that the Indianapolis deal was a massive swindle.
