After successfully saving the jobs of up to a thousand employees of Carrier and UT Corp. in Indiana, President-elect Donald Trump went back to his Twitter account to criticize Rexnord, another company that announced intentions to move American jobs to Mexico. Now Rexnord employees are asking for Trump’s intervention on their behalf, too.
“Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers,” Trump wrote in a December 2 tweet. “This is happening all over our country. No more!”
Rexnord Aerospace announced plans in October to close a plant in Indianapolis and move nearly 400 jobs to Mexico, citing cheaper wages as the reason for leaving the United States. In Mexico, Rexnord will likely pay no more than $3 per hour to employees.
After his tweet, Rexnord employees began to plead for Trump to save their jobs just like he did for Carrier’s employees, Fox 59 reported.
“I prayed, ‘God, just give me something to hold on to, some hope,'” Rexnord worker Brian Bousum told the media. “Then, he tweeted.”
Even as Mr. Bousum said Trump’s tweet was “something to hold on to,” he was still uncertain what it might all mean.
“He said ‘no more,'” added Bousum. “Does that mean no more after Rexnord? Does it mean he’s going to talk to the CEO Todd Adams? Did he try already? I have no clue.”
The employee is happy to have any “thread of hope”, though.
“It’s just enough to give you a little thread of hope that a miracle can still happen,” Bousum concluded. “And sometimes that’s all you need to get by another day.”
The announcement by Rexnord and Trump’s Friday tweet brought an array of responses on Twitter.
Of course, some conservatives oppose these deals no many how many jobs are saved.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.