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Is Carrier Staying in the U.S.?

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On Thursday, while most Americans were spending time with their families celebrating Thanksgiving, President-Elect Donald Trump was working on one of the top promises he made on the campaign trail: keeping jobs in the country.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/801805564577808385

We were curious as to whether or not there was a chance he was actually making progress keeping the manufacturing company from moving its operations from Indianapolis to Monterrey, Mexico leaving behind its 1,400 workers. So we reached out to T.J. Bray, a Carrier employee for 14 years who we interviewed in our Carrier episode of The Table, and he said he was aware of Trump’s tweet and that he is waiting to see what it’s all about.

A little over an hour after Trump’s tweet, Carrier acknowledged that they have spoken with the incoming administration but stayed mum on the details.

During his presidential run, Trump cited companies leaving the country for cheaper labor as an example of the failure of Nafta and other free-trade agreements. To help re-craft these agreements, Trump is expected to select billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as his commerce secretary to help in the renegotiation or withdrawal process.

MORE: Five Things About Jobs President Trump Will Have to Fix

A big hurdle the men will have to overcome in convincing Carrier to stay is the financial benefit for the company. In the U.S., Carrier pays its employees $15 to $26 an hour, which is about what the company’s workers in Monterrey earn in a day. And with the pressure from Wall Street investors to increase the bottom line, Carrier argued its best option to meet the demand, stay competitive and protect the company long-term was to move its operations.

Two days after Trump’s tweet, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released details on legislation he will soon be introducing to “make sure that Donald Trump keeps his promise to prevent the outsourcing of American jobs.”

The goal of Sanders’ legislation is to “send a very loud and very clear message to corporate America: the era of outsourcing is over,” and based on its four measures, listed below, it seems it would be very hard for an American company to justify outsourcing jobs to save money.

Sanders’ Outsourcing Prevention Act would:

  1. Prevent companies that outsource jobs from receiving federal contracts, tax breaks, grants or loans.
  2. Require all companies that outsource more than 50 jobs in a given year to pay back all federal tax breaks, grants and loans they have received from the federal government over the last decade.
  3. Impose a tax on all companies that outsource jobs. The tax would be equal to the amount of savings achieved by outsourcing jobs or 35 percent of its profits, whichever is higher.
  4. Prohibit companies that offshore jobs from enriching executives through golden parachutes, stock options, bonuses, or other forms of compensation by imposing stiff tax penalties on this compensation.

For now, we’ll have to wait and see whether Trump can get Carrier to stay and what measures he will take to make it happen. According to The New York Times, earlier this the week, Indiana state officials stopped by the factory to explain what benefits workers could expect as layoffs begin. The first production lines are expected to shut down in August 2017.

We will continue to update this story with the latest info and reactions.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.