{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/trump-leans-on-carrier-to-keep-2000-us-jobs-from-moving-to-mexico", "Trump Leans on Carrier to Keep 2,000 U.S. Jobs From Moving to Mexico", "2016-12-25", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "IN", "Joe Donnelly", "D000607", "www.donnelly.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Trump Leans on Carrier to Keep 2,000 U.S. Jobs From Moving to Mexico\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                    By:\u00a0\r\n                    Nelson Schwartz\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            Friday, November 25, 2016\r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            The value of the bully pulpit of the president of the United States can\u2019t be measured on a corporate spreadsheet or the Excel file of a Wall Street analyst.\r\nBut as President-elect Donald J. Trump tries to stop Carrier from moving more than 2,000 jobs to Mexico, the company is learning that the pulpit can be powerful indeed.\r\nCarrier, in the middle of negotiations with the incoming administration, may end up keeping some of the jobs in Indiana. In exchange, the incoming administration could ease up on regulation for businesses and cool campaign rhetoric on imposing tariffs.\r\nOfficials familiar with the situation, who insisted on anonymity because talks were still underway, described the discussion on Friday as a two-way negotiation, with both sides seeking a compromise.\r\nCarrier and its corporate parent, United Technologies, confirmed on Thursday that executives were in discussions about the fate of two factories in Indiana scheduled to shut down, not long after Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that he was \u201cworking hard, even on Thanksgiving,\u201d to get Carrier to stay. \u201cMaking progress,\u201d he added, in all capital letters.\r\nFor both Mr. Trump and the company, the stakes are huge. His promise to reverse trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, and bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States was critical in taking the Rust Belt out of the Democratic column and winning the White House.\r\n\u201cTrump cannot afford to back down on this one,\u201d said Robert Dilenschneider, a veteran public relations executive who advises companies and chief executives on strategic communications. \u201cHe prides himself on the art of the deal, and he\u2019s going to make Carrier an offer they can\u2019t refuse.\u201d\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a hallmark case and if Trump can win it, which I think he will, it will send a message to every single American company that\u2019s thinking of going offshore,\u201d Mr. Dilenschneider added.\r\nFor the company, the costs of defying the president-elect are at least as high, if not higher, and may well outweigh the tens of millions of dollars to be saved by relocating production to Monterrey, Mexico, from Indiana.\r\nUnited Technologies is among the country\u2019s biggest military contractors, producing engines for the Pentagon\u2019s most advanced fighter jets and receiving more than $5 billion annually from the federal government. That equals 10 percent of the company\u2019s revenue.\r\nThe size of the federal government\u2019s dealings with United Technologies has also caught the eye of legislators on Capitol Hill, like Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s unfair to ask the same workers who have been laid off to pay tax dollars that will go to the company that fired them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in this together as Americans. When our workers succeed, our economy succeeds and our defense contractors succeed.\u201d\r\nSenator Donnelly is pushing for the government to consider outsourcing as a factor in deciding which companies receive federal contracts.\r\nKenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, a professor of labor and employment law at the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University, said he also thought that Mr. Trump \u201ccould get a win here,\u201d adding, \u201cBecause they are a defense contractor, the federal government has some leverage.\u201d\r\n\u201cWhether he can do something that benefits the working class in general is a different story,\u201d he said. \u201cThe underlying problems are very hard to address. Trying to hold back the economic tide of automation, and the loss of middle-class manufacturing jobs, is something I\u2019m not sure anybody can do.\u201d\r\nWhile Carrier is best known for its air-conditioners, it also sells a variety of other heating and cooling equipment for homes and small businesses, like the furnaces and fan coils made at the Indianapolis factory.\r\nAnd as a consumer-oriented business, Carrier is much more vulnerable to public pressure than firms that primarily deal with other businesses, said Barbara J. Fick, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School.\r\nShe noted that not far from Notre Dame\u2019s campus, at a plant in South Bend, Honeywell has been engaged in a bitter standoff since May with employees represented by the United Automobile Workers.\r\n\u201cHoneywell doesn\u2019t make a lot of things you can boycott,\u201d Ms. Fick said. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly business-to-business. To the extent that Carrier makes air-conditioners and furnaces, you can hit them with the pocketbook.\u201d\r\nAlthough Carrier workers in Indianapolis say management at the factory has been traveling back and forth to Mexico in recent months, with Mexican engineers measuring machines that are expected to be transported to Monterrey, there is plenty of time for the company to change course.\r\nIn a presentation this week, Carrier\u2019s management told employees that the fan coil line would be the first to close in mid-2017, eliminating 300 to 400 jobs. But as that line closes, about 100 jobs will be saved temporarily by the creation of a new night shift making high-efficiency furnaces.\r\nHigh-efficiency furnace production is not set to end until mid- to late 2018, while the final line to close, mid-efficiency furnaces, won\u2019t he shuttered until early 2019.\r\nThat staggered schedule has given workers some hope that if a compromise between the new administration and the company does emerge, it may revolve around keeping the gas furnace production lines open, even if a smaller number of jobs are relocated to Mexico in the meantime.\r\nIf a deal was reached, it could also help set the tone for a Trump presidency in terms of corporate America, Mr. Dilenschneider said.\r\nMuch as Ronald Reagan\u2019s decision to fire striking air traffic controllers in 1981 signaled to organized labor that political momentum was no longer on their side, keeping Carrier in Indiana would show that a Republican president was willing to stand up to corporate America.\r\nThere are signs that Mr. Trump is already eager to show just that. This month, he took credit for Ford\u2019s decision to keep Lincoln production in Kentucky, although it is not clear that any Ford jobs at the Louisville plant were actually in danger of going to Mexico.\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any difference who the president is,\u201d Mr. Dilenschneider said. \u201cIf the president of the United States says, \u2018Do it,\u2019 you\u2019ve got to give it some very serious thought.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/trump-leans-on-carrier-to-keep-2000-us-jobs-from-moving-to-mexico"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.671883812174201, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}