INDIANAPOLIS -- Anger and frustration boiled over at our RTV6 Carrier Town Hall event Tuesday night, with employees and their supporters in attendance pointing to free trade agreements as the root of the problem that has left 1,400 people without jobs in Indianapolis.
Carrier decided to move those and 700 other jobs in Huntington, Ind. to Monterrey, Mexico to save money.
Wayne Dale and Mike Millsap with the United Steelworkers Union, the union that represents Carrier's workers, and Brett Voorhies with the AFL-CIO started the Town Hall as a panel, highlighting the "corporate greed" that they say led to this.
Millsap and Dale broke a bit of news right away, saying that Carrier rejected the union's proposal to save the company $25 million and stay because "it wasn't $65 million."
Milsap: I told Carrier, please work with us, they refused, put nothing on table, other than it takes $5.85/ hour #CarrierTownHall
— RTV6 Indianapolis (@rtv6) May 10, 2016
When discussing the probability of another company moving out of the state or country and leaving people on the street, Voorhies said companies are "doing this because they can."
"The way we can influence this is at the ballots," Voorhies said.
Elected officials showed up in support of the Carrier workers in the second panel. Indianapolis City-County Councilor Jared Evans, State Representative Karlee Macer (D) and Jeff Bennett, the Deputy Mayor of Indianapolis talked about the impact of this decision, and what they've done to try and prevent it.
#CarrierTownHall Evans: This isn't just the 1,400 who lost their job, it's thousands of people affected by this, 5,000 and 6,000
— RTV6 Indianapolis (@rtv6) May 10, 2016
Rep. Macer represents the west-side of Indianapolis where the Carrier plant is located. She said she put claw backs in an amendment to a bill that tries to get at all of the money given to Carrier back to Indianapolis. She said that bill was shut down in the Senate after passing the House.
Deputy Mayor Bennett talked about the $1.2 million, and making sure it goes to the right people and purposes, for all those affected by the decision, not just the 1,400 workers who lost their jobs, but their families and the businesses around them.
Evans finished with a direct message to US Congress to stop giving defense contracts to Carrier's parent company, United Technologies. He called for citizens to write to their Senate and Hose reps to call for an end to that spending. Those comments drew strong applause from the crowd.
The Town Hall got heated in the next panel, which was led by Dr. Tobi Malichi, who helped put together NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Act, which was signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.
Malichi took a lot questions with an undertone of anger from those in the audience, but ultimately preached a need for changes.
#CarrierTownHall Malichi: I don't think in retrospect we did a very good job in protecting American workers
— RTV6 Indianapolis (@rtv6) May 10, 2016
Malichi defended the bill by saying it was the country's first trade agreement, and that they've tried to learn and grow as they've gotten better. Malichi is not a decision maker anymore, and rather just an elected volunteer, he said.
Chuck Jones of the USW was with Malichi, and called for a boycott of Carrier products.
#CarrierTownHall Jones: Only way it's going to stop is fix these free trade agreements
— RTV6 Indianapolis (@rtv6) May 10, 2016
Malichi did say that he thought more union representation was needed at the table for conversations about things like NAFTA and the new TPP (The Trans Pacific Partnership, which would add 11 additional countries to a trade agreement similar to NAFTA).
The last panel consisted of Kimble Richardson, a mental health professional with Community Health, and Dennis Wimer, Associated Chief Operating Officer with Workforce Operations. Wimer offered job training and services advice and resources to the audience, while Richardson made an impassioned plea to those affected by Carrier to use each other as a support group.
#CarrierTownHall Richardson: You guys are going to be your best support system
— RTV6 Indianapolis (@rtv6) May 10, 2016
You can watch the Town Hall in its entirety in the video player and sort through the live blog of comments as they happened in real-time below.
