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The World Socialist Web Site reports
[July 20], 338 workers completed their final shifts at the Carrier gas furnace factory in Indianapolis, Indiana. They were the first wave of 640 workers who will lose their jobs by December 22 at the plant, which President Trump claimed he "saved" through negotiations with Carrier's parent company, United Technologies (UTC).
"People knew Trump was full of crap", 13-year Carrier veteran Taj Longino told the World Socialist Web Site. "But they hung on to the hope because most were too young to retire or too old to get another job. Where are they going to go now? They're stuck in limbo and uncertainty", Longino said.
The fan coil department is being shut down and moved to Mexico, the worker said. "Counting the maintenance department, press operators, forklift drivers, and production line workers, maybe there will be 600 workers left, out of way more than 1,000. The other Carrier plant in northern Indiana is gone."
[...] The fate of the Carrier workers was exploited by both Trump and then-Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders after UTC announced plans to shut the plant and move production to Monterrey, Mexico where workers are paid $3.90 an hour. Both sought to divert anger away from the corporations and their relentless drive for profit by blaming "unfair trade" and Mexican workers for the loss of jobs.
Just ahead of his inauguration, Trump triumphantly announced that a deal had been reached with UTC that would keep the Carrier plant in Indianapolis running and save 1,100 jobs. He and Vice President Pence--the former governor of Indiana--celebrated the deal with United Steelworkers representatives at the plant on December 1. The agreement promised UTC incentives from both the federal and state governments of up to $7 million in exchange for UTC's promise to employ at least 1,069 people at the Indianapolis plant for 10 years. Additionally, the company promised to invest $16 million in the facility.
The deal did not represent a victory, Pyrrhic or otherwise, for Carrier workers, though. Only 730 of the 1,069 jobs that UTC vowed to maintain are in manufacture. The remainder are engineering and technical positions, which had never been slated for outsourcing in the first place. Moreover, the $16 million in plant expenditures would not go towards increasing the workforce of the Indianapolis plant. Greg Hayes, UTC's CEO, stated publicly in December that the money had been earmarked for increasing automation at the plant, flatly stating that this would result in fewer workers over time.
According to an AP story in US News & World Report:
Carrier announced last year that it would close the Indianapolis plant and cut about 1,400 production jobs in a move expected to save $65 million annually.
Trump repeatedly criticized Carrier's Mexico outsourcing plan. Weeks after Trump won the election, Carrier announced an agreement to spare about 800 jobs in Indianapolis.
About 600 jobs are still being eliminated.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Friday July 28 2017, @05:31AM (17 children)
The entire developed world got where it is through global trade. Isolationism can work for relatively short periods (a generation or two) of time if workers make a lot of sacrifices to build up competitive businesses and infrastructure. But we don't have historical examples of isolationism to protect workers that actually worked and did that.
And even if we did suffer a current reversal of regulation and wages, why would that mean "getting rid of all our progress"? For example, China has a rapidly growing economy and a standard of living well above early 1900s standards. A lot of people complain that globalism is a "race to the bottom". But the bottom is not that bad. There isn't an infinite pool of cheap labor and zero regulations to drag down the US and the rest of the developed world forever.
My view is that the countries with the better environments for business creation and employers in general and solid rule of law are going to rise to the top just as they have for the past few centuries.
(Score: 1, Troll) by sjames on Friday July 28 2017, @10:59AM (16 children)
Global free trade hasn't even existed for more than that generation or two you speak of. More likely, it is the blip on the radar that can provide a momentary boost followed by decades of suffering.
There is a pool of cheap labor big enough to drag the developed world down for longer than anyone currently living will be around. There is no good reason not to temper things by "impedance matching" different economies through tariffs. In other words, as is typical, the extremes have a poor outcome but there exists a middle way that works.
Not sure why you get off so hard on falling standards of living and the U.S. turning into a 3rd world country, but there's simply no need for that to happen if we act rationally and put a few brakes on globalism until things equalize a bit.
As for your Claims about the standard of living in China, sure they're so happy they have to put up anti-suicide nets for people who simply cannot stand another moment of ecstasy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 28 2017, @03:42PM (12 children)
Global trade is a bit older [wikipedia.org] than that. The Spice Road predates civilization itself. And the US was engaged in global trade before it became the US.
By 2050, you will be shown wrong.
I agree. I just think zero impedance is about the right spot.
Just because the US has failed to adapt to globalism in the last decade and a half doesn't mean globalism is to blame. A whole bunch of other countries are doing amazingly well by globalism. Maybe it's time to look at what is working rather than what isn't.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 28 2017, @10:13PM (11 children)
Sure, international trade has gone on for some time, and usually had the built-in brake that the journey was long and generally not without danger. But that wasn't global trade and it wasn't free trade (often tariffs were involved as well). That's why it worked so well.
There's still plenty of rural Chinese and when they run out, most of Africa is there to provide cheap labor.
The countries doing well with globalism apply tariffs and other methods to impedance match.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:03AM (3 children)
China has plenty of rural Chinese, yet the wages in the cities keep on rising. Why aren't they dragging down the cities into third world status?
(Score: 1, Troll) by sjames on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:19AM (2 children)
The cities aren't out of third world status yet. Don't worry, they'll rope in some more rural people as soon as that becomes the cheaper option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @09:57AM (1 child)
Wow, you really don't know anything about China do you. Google is your friend. You think it's a new idea to rope in more rural people? They have been doing it for decades. Guess what, the wages are still going up and the cities are getting better at the same time.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 29 2017, @05:30PM
Apparently you don't understand economic decisions. It costs X to bring people in from rural areas and accommodate and acclimate them. It costs Y to pay higher wages instead. Whenever X < Y, they bring in rural people. X is rising because pollution makes it harder to talk people into living with it and because the easiest to recruit rural people are already recruited, so that means they let Y increase until the balance is reached. Yes, I simplified a bit. That's because it's just a posting to a forum, not a dissertation or a book.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:20AM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:59AM (5 children)
Germany is an example. They do a a lot of trade with China, but they do it sensibly [globaltrade.net].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:28AM
So having a trade surplus is bad when China does it, but good if Germany does it.
Are you sure you're not just a teensy tiny bit biased...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:09PM (3 children)
To the contrary, Germany would still be a bombed out wreck split between two superpowers, if it weren't for global relatively free trade. Germany got the way it is because West Germany had the US and Europe as its trading partners with very free trade - while East Germany and the USSR went the other way. It's quite clear which approach won.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday July 30 2017, @04:33PM (2 children)
Sorry no. The USSR and East Germany went the no trade route. I have never advocated that. In fact I was quite clear that neither extreme was likely to produce a good result.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:53PM (1 child)
My point is that West Germany went the extreme free trade route.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 31 2017, @12:42AM
Except that it didn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:18PM (2 children)
You can try putting the brakes on in America, but the rest of the world will carry on without you. You will just be putting yourselves further behind and helping China to overtake you faster.
You must know by now that the suicide rates werent much higher than other similar sized populations in other first world countries, people in the cities are much less suicidal than the poor farmers. So you are talking nonsense. China's standard of living has been rising sharply an continuously for 30 years. How about the US?
Don't like your chances of America acting rationally.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:39AM (1 child)
Further behind in what? The race to the bottom? Pollution so thick that smoking might purify the air?
But yes, China's standard of living is increasing. That's to be expected since they're on the developing side. I don't have a problem with that, as long as we don't regress the U.S. in the process (as we have been). Slowing it down a bit would still allow China to make progress while not harming the U.S.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:49AM
Further behind in leading the world and having the biggest economy, setting the global agenda/rules.
China is already slowing down, maybe you missed the news about the slowest growth there in decades and fears of hard landings a few years back. Didn't happen but they are growing slower and moving up the value chain relying less and less on exports and more on domestic services. The air has been getting measurably cleaner as well, still bad but improving.
The fundamental problem America has, is that it's prosperity for most people, relies on being able to buy cheap things from overseas. It relies on the fact you are exploiting foreigners. There is no way for you to have cheap stuff without other places making cheap stuff, it's just not possible. Your only choice is to ride the wave of global growth, try to stay on top innovate and invest for the future. Because once they catch up to your standards / wages / conditions etc, they will beat you with numbers, practical experience, infrastructure.
Trying to stop the US from regressing by bringing back shitty jobs and making everything more expensive seems like cutting off ones nose to spite ones face.