President-elect Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday night after steelworkers’ union leader Chuck Jones accused him of lying about the scale and success of his deal to keep Indiana’s Carrier factory from moving jobs to Mexico.
“Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!” Trump tweeted shortly after Jones appeared on CNN’s Erin Burnett Out Front program Wednesday night, where the labor leader criticized what he said was the President-elect’s unfulfilled promise to keep more than a thousand jobs at the plant.
Trump doubled down about an hour later with a second tweet reading: “If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues.”
Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016
According to the Washington Post, Jones was initially optimistic when Trump announced he had reached a deal with Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies (UTX), to keep about 1,100 jobs in Indianapolis. He later learned, the Post reports, that only 730 of the production jobs would stay, while 550 union members would in fact lose their employment.
He said he hoped Trump would explain this discrepancy at a Dec. 1 meeting between the President-elect and Carrier’s supervisors, employees and the media. “But he got up there, and, for whatever reason, lied his a– off,” Jones told the Post.
“Now they’re keeping—actually the number’s over 1,100 people,” Trump reportedly told the crowd of about 150 people, “which is so great.”
For more on Trump’s Carrier deal, watch Coins2Day’s video:
Jones said Trump and Pence could take credit for securing about 800 jobs at the plant, which employs a total of about 1,700 people. Some 350 of them were reportedly never meant to leave Indiana, and another 80 were nonunion positions. Those jobs, according to Jones, appear to be included in Trump’s figure.
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
Trump has been vocal in his praise of Carrier and has reportedly offered the company $7 million in tax breaks as part of the agreement, which Trump brokered after his election win last month after promising on the campaign trail that he would save the jobs in question. The company agreed to invest $16 million in its Indiana facility, though it’s parent corporation still plans to send some 700 factory jobs from Huntington, Ind., to Mexico, according to the Post.
