United Technology employees in Huntington feel forgotten by Trump and others

“We have all three shifts full and every line running. At the time of the announcement we were not on full production on third shift and since then we have been,” Harmon said. 

Prior to the announcement in February, Harmon said the union was preparing to negotiate another contract with UTEC and meet with team members to prepare for those negotiations.

“We were going to leave on a Thursday to go out, because our negotiations started on Monday, and we were called into a meeting on Wednesday and it was announced that day that our plant was moving to Mexico,” Harmon said. “Not only had we had our minds set on what we could do to help the people out there, [but] we even had a couple plans with health insurance that was brought to us from our international union to help them lower their cost. So all that combined that we had planned, we walk in there and we are devastated that they are announcing that they are moving us to Mexico.”

The UTEC workers were “ecstatic” with the negotiations that the IBEW Local 983 came up with, but that soon changed to anger and disappointment. About 140 people will be fired in the second quarter of 2017, Harmon said. 

“The closer it gets people are getting more anxious, more upset, and a lot of them don’t want to leave,” Harmon said.

The announcement that President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence was meeting with Carrier in Indianapolis on Dec. 1 because of a potential deal to save 1,100 Carrier employees brought a sense of hope to the 700 plus UTEC workers, according to Harmon.

“You walk in on a Wednesday morning after it was announced and the people were just looking at us like ‘are we a part of it?”

Harmon said after learning that the 700 plus UTEC employees were not a part of Trump’s deal with Carrier it was “February all over again.”

“They are devastated. That one day, that one minute they were thinking that they were able to keep their jobs, some of them or all of them, and the next minute they are down in the dumps again,” Harmon said. “It is not really controversy, but people get on edge.”

IBEW Local 983 went down to Indianapolis in Dec. 1 during the announcement, according to Harmon.

“We went down to Indianapolis and protested to Trump and held signs up as his motorcade came through, asking what about our jobs in Huntington,” Harmon said. “What Trump did bring for Carrier, and what Carrier did for Trump, had nothing to do with the 700 jobs in Huntington Indiana, which had never been mentioned in his whole campaign. He knows that we are here but he is not going to publicize that because it is not to any benefit for him to say to Huntington, ‘sorry, your 700 jobs are gone’ and he’s just not going to do that.”

The third and fourth quarters of 2017 will both see approximately 160 jobs leaving for each quarter, with Harmon saying that in the first quarter of 2018 the manufacturing part of UTEC will be “totally shut down.”

“The back half of the building will be empty,” Harmon said. “They are keeping some of the office people. I believe some research and development, some engineering in there. Those are salary workers. There will be no more union employees in there.”

The reasoning for breaking the job cuts by quarters, according to Harmon, was because the new facility in Monterrey, Mexico, was built earlier this year and cannot move the lines fast enough to keep up with customer demands.

“In February, when this was announced, they had not even broke ground for this plant. Within the first two months, they started breaking the ground down there, pouring the concrete and putting the walls up,” Harmon said. “They have since moved one line out of our facility and different insertions to start their production. They have another line leaving this February, but that is not going to affect any of our people.”

In October of this year 29 UTEC employees quit the facility, according to Harmon, who said there have never been that many employees quitting at one time since UTEC began in Huntington in the early 1990s.

Harmon said he believes there are ways that Trump could at least look into options that could save the Huntington UTEC plant, saying that Trump should look into how much UTEC’s products are used by the United States military. He further said that former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders spoke to Trump about looking into defense contract funding.

“The government has a bunch of defense contracts with this corporation, UTEC, we build different things for the government and Bernie has tried to talk to Trump because if we don’t build that stuff for the military then who is going to build it? We are top of the line people, Carrier and UTEC, we are the best,” Harmon said. “If the people in America knew how much we have built for the American government, I think that this would cause a big uproar, but [Trump] is not going to mention that,” Harmon said.

Most of the UTEC employees feel that Trump has forgotten about them, according to Harmon, who said some people have been working at UTEC for over 40 years.

“Some of them are 58, 59 years old and they are not ready for retirement, and they cannot at that age because they cannot draw in enough income,” Harmon said. “That is all they know and it is going to be rough on them, very rough. These people are very confused on what they are going to do.”

Chris Setser said he has been with UTEC for 14 years and said he hoped to retire from the business.

“It has been good to me work wise.,” Setser said. “I run a service mount machine with another operator and it is one of the higher tier jobs.”

He said with 2017 getting closer he is worried jobs will be eliminated.

“I’m not happy about it, but who is? We could be losing our jobs,” Setser said.

When asked if Trump should reach out to UTEC for a conversation Setser said it would be nice to see. 

“It’s hard to tell what is going to happen from here on out, but at least there is a window that there wasn’t before,” Setser said.  

Mike Brown, 50, said he has been employed at UTEC for 16 years as of June and said it is a place he wanted to retire from.

“I turned 50 this year and don’t know what I’m going to do if I lose my job, and I feel betrayed because we were not given any type of warning,” Brown said.

He said he is glad Trump saved jobs in Indianapolis, but he wished it were UTEC jobs, adding that Trump should reach out to UTEC for a conversation.

“To me Trump has done more to save American jobs than Obama has done in eight years,” Brown said.“When Trump was campaigning he mentioned Huntington and Indianapolis both. President Obama didn’t say anything about us and with him being the standing president why isn’t he stepping up and saying what can we do to keep you guys here?” Brown said.

If he loses his job, he said he doesn’t know what he will do.

“The education package offered covers two years of education, but I turned 50 this year, who will hire me if a 20-year-old has the same degree I have? They will go with the younger person because they can mold them and get them for cheaper.”

According to Brown, he is trying to get his veterans benefits and was told since he makes more than $23,000 a year he doesn’t qualify for veterans benefits.

Brown is not married and doesn’t have kids, but he said the news of a possible job elimination has effected him. He said he had plans to pay for his relatives to come to town and rent out a building, but he will not be able to anymore due to the pending job situation.

Harmon said he would really like to speak to Trump one-on-one about what is happening to UTEC and its 700 workers in Huntington.

“On behalf on all my brothers and sisters in IBEW Local 983, and to the salary workers that are losing their jobs with this move to Mexico, Donald Trump please recognize us,” Harmon said. “Know that there are people up here that will be losing our jobs.”

Harmon said the UTEC facility is also a family place and that many employees are married to each other. He added that his wife, Dee, has worked for UTEC for seven years and that his son, Justin, who is 23, has been with the company for two years.

“There are a lot of husbands and wives that work there, more than any other facility that I have ever seen,” Harmon said.