PERU, Indiana: Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency four years ago, in part, by promising Midwest factory workers that he would stop companies like Schneider Electric SE from moving jobs out of the country.
He did not stop them.
The Schneider plant, which made electrical equipment near the center of this small town north of Indianapolis, closed in April, striking 306 jobs. Regina McDowell, who worked there for 42 years and said it was the only job she had ever done but watching a teenager, said she went through “a bit of depression” when it closed. e.
President Trump did not send any angry tweets on behalf of factory workers or a response to workers who reached out to the White House for help, said McDowell, who remains the union’s treasurer’s secretary. staff at Schneider and several other small plants in Peru. Some staff were optimistic that Trump could speak, as he did on behalf of staff at the Carrier Corp facility. which was nearby during the 2016 election campaign.
Public support was also not offered by former Piana governor and elected vice president Mike Pence negotiating with Carrier to change their plans, including meeting with Carrier’s parent company CEO at Trump Tower in New York in late November. 2016.
Despite the silence from Washington, McDowell said most cooks strongly supported Trump in the 2020 election. “They blamed the company, not him.”
Peru is just one example of how offshoring went on even under a president who promised to stop it. While there is no complete data to cover all U.S. jobs lost due to redundancies, the Department of Labor is monitoring cases where employees petition for help under federal law designed to support those damaged by trade.
During the four years of the Trump administration, that program confirmed 2,095 petitions covering 202,151 workers who lost jobs who moved abroad. That’s just under the 2,170 petitions approved in the last four years of the Obama administration, which covered 209,735 employees.
“The challenge for the US is a shortage of skilled workers and higher costs – that has not changed,” said Patrick Van den Bossche, a Kearney partner who oversees the movement of companies. their footprints.
Venancio Figueroa, a spokesman for Schneider, said it was a “difficult” decision to close a plant, “but we saw it as necessary so that we could remain competitive in the markets we are in. to attend. ”
“We had no questions from the Trump administration” or from the Indiana state government, he said. There were investigations by local and county government, which were trying to reverse the decision, he said.
Schneider, a French conglomerate, opposed the idea that it was reducing its commitment to U.S. production, noting that it has promised to spend US $ 40 million to renovate plants in Kentucky, Iowa. Nebraska, and Texas.
RASPUTIN HYMN
The loss of the plant was a heavy blow to Peru, a population of 11,500, which was once a wintering home for several large circuses. A bear in Peru was killed by Maria Rasputin, daughter of the famous Russian monk Grigori Rasputin, while working for a circus there. She survived. The only remnant of that history is a large circus museum and a summer festival and circus parade.
Schneider was the largest business employer, although it had declined in recent years. The plant produced a circuit breaker panel and enclosures that are used to protect electrical equipment.
The plant is now sitting empty. Most of its former owner’s signs have been demolished, although small signs are still on gates to a large parking lot and there is a Schneider-branded car toll station next to the front door of the factory’s main offices.
The plant moved some of the produce to Monterrey, Mexico, as well as non-union activity in South Carolina and Texas.
“The goal was to get away from the union,” said Eli Ireland, who has worked at the plant for 22 years. The company called the idea “erroneous.”
In fact, the union representing the workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, kept a record of the plants it represented that closed during Trump’s tenure. They recorded more than 50, including Peru. Not all cases where jobs were sent directly abroad. But there are many, according to the union.
“We did this because the administration said we would restore jobs and stop plant closures, so we collected this data,” said union spokesman Jonathan Battaglia.
The good news for workers in Peru is that many of them quickly found jobs. When the plant closed, the disease had not yet spread to the U.S. and employers were hungry for workers. For example, Ireland quickly went to work for a state agency that works with veterans. McDowell, 62, said she decided to take some time off but would soon start community college courses with help from a trade change fund. She hopes to start her own nonprofit to work with lone parents on housing and other issues.
One aspect of the factory closure that McDowell is still struggling with, is that it coincided with the bitter selection and transmission of COVID-19 infection. McDowell, who is Black, said many of her friends, some of whom she has known for 30 years, stopped communicating with her as the campaign heated up and her anti-Trump views raged. going against the wider strong support among chefs.
“It’s weird. Sometimes I see them outside and we usually talk because we knew each other, ”she said. “But these are people I would do things with outside of work. Hopefully when things settle down, and Covid is over, we can reach out again. “
(Narrated by Timothy Aeppel; edited by Dan Burns and Edward Tobin)