by Daniel Nardini
With much hoopla, then U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had made a much televised announcement that he had saved American jobs at the Carrier Corporation plant, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, from going to Mexico. Carrier, which manufactures heat, ventilation and air-conditioning systems as well as refrigeration and food equipment since 1915, had planned to take most of its 1,000 jobs to a newly built factory facility in Monterrey, Mexico. Trump had intervened, saying that corporations would not be able to take any American jobs away “without any consequences.” Yet Carrier did eliminate 600 of those jobs and the rest will be eliminated by the end of the year. Despite Trump’s promise, and despite what Carrier said earlier, the jobs at the plant in Indianapolis will be eliminated.
So much for promises. But it follows the sad trend that most American voted Donald Trump in to stop—the out-sourcing of American jobs to cheaper, Third World countries. This trend, which has been going on since the early 1990’s, shows no real abating. Corporate business is still by and large taking manufacturing jobs out of the country and there seems to be no penalties in place to stop it. This comes as no surprise since corporate business can still buy and influence our politicians in Washington, D.C., in order to out-source the jobs and still get their tax breaks. But even if these things were not there, the problem is that for too many companies, both big and small, is that it makes more business sense to locate a manufacture facility in a Third World country and just pay workers pennies on the dollar to make whatever products that are made and then ship them at the cheapest rate possible back to the United States.
This way companies keep their costs down and their profits way up. The two best things that President Trump might do are, first, try and save as many companies and manufactures and tech companies as possible. If he uses the federal government to help the state and local governments to give benefits to those companies staying then this will help save a lot of jobs and employees their livelihoods. But there have to be penalties with real teeth in them in order for this to work—empty penalties will not stop companies from relocating if they are convinced that they can just simply take the money and run. Second, continuing former U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign of encouraging as many companies of relocating back to the United States would greatly boost not only employment but also employment with really good paying jobs. That is the best that I can see happen. But, we will never see the quality jobs and mass manufacturing that had been true in our parent’s. our grand-parent’s, and even great grand-parent’s time of 50 to 60 years ago. Those kind of jobs have been forever eliminated to out-sourcing and technological innovations that no longer require great numbers of people in production. We cannot live in the past……………we must move forward.
The Jobs Will Never Come Back
by Daniel Nardini
With much hoopla, then U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had made a much televised announcement that he had saved American jobs at the Carrier Corporation plant, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, from going to Mexico. Carrier, which manufactures heat, ventilation and air-conditioning systems as well as refrigeration and food equipment since 1915, had planned to take most of its 1,000 jobs to a newly built factory facility in Monterrey, Mexico. Trump had intervened, saying that corporations would not be able to take any American jobs away “without any consequences.” Yet Carrier did eliminate 600 of those jobs and the rest will be eliminated by the end of the year. Despite Trump’s promise, and despite what Carrier said earlier, the jobs at the plant in Indianapolis will be eliminated.
So much for promises. But it follows the sad trend that most American voted Donald Trump in to stop—the out-sourcing of American jobs to cheaper, Third World countries. This trend, which has been going on since the early 1990’s, shows no real abating. Corporate business is still by and large taking manufacturing jobs out of the country and there seems to be no penalties in place to stop it. This comes as no surprise since corporate business can still buy and influence our politicians in Washington, D.C., in order to out-source the jobs and still get their tax breaks. But even if these things were not there, the problem is that for too many companies, both big and small, is that it makes more business sense to locate a manufacture facility in a Third World country and just pay workers pennies on the dollar to make whatever products that are made and then ship them at the cheapest rate possible back to the United States.
This way companies keep their costs down and their profits way up. The two best things that President Trump might do are, first, try and save as many companies and manufactures and tech companies as possible. If he uses the federal government to help the state and local governments to give benefits to those companies staying then this will help save a lot of jobs and employees their livelihoods. But there have to be penalties with real teeth in them in order for this to work—empty penalties will not stop companies from relocating if they are convinced that they can just simply take the money and run. Second, continuing former U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign of encouraging as many companies of relocating back to the United States would greatly boost not only employment but also employment with really good paying jobs. That is the best that I can see happen. But, we will never see the quality jobs and mass manufacturing that had been true in our parent’s. our grand-parent’s, and even great grand-parent’s time of 50 to 60 years ago. Those kind of jobs have been forever eliminated to out-sourcing and technological innovations that no longer require great numbers of people in production. We cannot live in the past……………we must move forward.