‘What happened’ with city’s pledged spending for Carrier workers
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Representatives from a union representing most of the laid-off Carrier employees said they want more answers from the city government on its pledged efforts to help those couple hundred employees.
We’re learning most of those laid-off employees are still looking for work and the United Steelworkers Local 1999 said that reality is disappointing because these layoffs were more than a year in the making.
“And these people are leaving today and we haven’t heard about that supposed $1 million plus that’s supposed to go to these people,” said TJ Bray, a spokesperson for the steelworkers union, said Thursday. “So we’d like to know what happened with that?
The city has pledged since April 2016 to use more than $1 million to help those workers losing their jobs. That’s money Carrier returned in tax incentives to the city.
But Bray questions where and how much of that money has been used.
“We thought that money was going to go toward these people losing their jobs and helping them in any assistance they would need,” he said.
In an email, the city said it has helped Carrier employees with a task force created by the mayor to figure out the next steps for those losing their jobs.
But State Rep. Karlee Macer, a Democrat from Indianapolis who is on the task force, said it met sparingly. And a website geared for Carrier employees doesn’t have information on it.
Macer also said this process is raising questions to her.
“I have not seen a strategic financial plan about what is going to happen with the money that is prepared to be implemented at this time,” she said.
The city also said it has hosted several job fairs, targeted re-employment efforts, and hired four people to help with career services at Carrier, among other efforts.
But Bray said very few have a job lined up.
“We have a lot of single moms with kids and sick family members they’re taking care of,” he said.
With another couple hundred set to be laid off in December, Bray said he hopes there’s more progress to help these folks land on their feet.
More than 300 employees were cut Thursday and another 290 set to be laid off just three days before Christmas.
It’s part of the Carrier’s plan to move some jobs to Mexico.
Last November, Carrier agreed to keep about 800 jobs in Indiana in exchange for millions of dollars in state incentives.
Workers who were laid off are getting a severance package and health insurance for six more months.
So we still don’t have a clear estimate from the city on how much of that $1.2 million has been used.
We did ask the city if they would expand on some of these efforts in an on-camera interview but they declined that request.
City leaders said there is going to be another announcement for these laid-off Carrier employees in the next few weeks. They didn’t elaborate on it though.
When we told Bray about that announcement, he said he didn’t understand why that announcement didn’t happen before these layoffs hit since we’ve known about them for more than a year now.