Carrier Plant to Cut Jobs Anyway

Rhonda Adams,  NYC based EntrepreneurIt all started with a viral video way back in February 2016. Some mid-level manager tasked with delivering very bad news to a group of factory workers at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis. The company said it would be moving 1,400 jobs to Mexico, triggering a PR crisis that rippled through the 2016 Presidential election. Then-candidate Donald Trump famously met with Carrier and negotiated a deal that would keep some jobs in the U.S. Trump was a hero who would keep American jobs in America, and he rode that story all the way to a winning ticket in November. As it turns out, those laurels may have been offered a bit too soon.And even the numbers were inflated. As reported by multiple news outlets, the number of jobs Carrier said they wouldn’t move were around 800, not 1,100 as Trump claimed. Political opponents immediately jumped on the discrepancy, while Trump apologists complained the media wasn’t focused on the jobs that were saved. Now, though, the question is who will carry this narrative forward?Carrier recently announced plans to eliminate several hundred jobs this year anyway. Sure, they will keep the plant open, but they are still moving some of the operation to Mexico. That begs two questions: which jobs, and how long will the old plan continue to operate with some of its capabilities shuttered? Especially as labor costs in Mexico continue to be much cheaper than those in the United States.As entrepreneur Daniel Palmier noted, “Further, some of the jobs still remaining at the Indianapolis plant will be eliminated, replaced by automation. Carrier is making these calls based on financial realities, but if they don’t get out in front of this story, they are likely to pay a big Public Relations cost.”Carrier, not Trump, will be blamed for the jobs lost to Mexico and then again for the ones replaced by automation. They will be accused of breaking promises … even though they didn’t make the promises in the first place. Trump made them as part of a Presidential campaign photo op. But that won’t matter to his supporters, and it may not be reported that way in the media. Headlines, except in forums that are dedicated to being anti-Trump, will be all about Carrier shipping jobs out of the country.And Carrier is not the only company that will face this frustrating PR tightrope walk. Any company that can cut costs using automation will be doing so in the coming years as machines are becoming “smart” enough to do many line jobs. Meanwhile, politicians will continue to promise the world to frustrated, out of work or underemployed voters … people who will trust those pols to save them, because they want to believe. When reality crushes those beliefs, who gets the blame?.