Trump in February put Harley-Davidson on a pedestal for “building things in America” and creating jobs. Now, the manufacturer is opening a new plant in Thailand and laying off laying off 180 workers in Milwaukee and Kansas City.
The latest Harley-Davidson layoffs and apparent offshoring mark just the latest data point in a trend of Trump championing firms that have gone on to layoff workers, offshore jobs, or both:
- Trump celebrated Boeing, then the company laid off ~200 workers at the same South Carolina plant;
- Carrier has continued to lay off employees in Indiana — 300 more go into effect tomorrow — despite Trump’s “grand bargain” that gave the company millions in taxpayer incentives even as it announced further layoffs and a shift to automation;
- American Coal laid off nearly 300 miners just one month after Trump invited mine owner Robert Murray to the White House for the signing of an executive order overturning the Clean Power Plan and promised coal miners, “C’mon, fellas. You know what this is? You know what this says? You’re going back to work.” Murray had spent more than half a million dollars supporting Trump’s election.
- And in New Jersey, Novartis laid off 204 workers — specifically noting that the jobs would be outsourced to India — even after Trump met with the company’s CEO.
“There have been 141,000-plus announced layoffs during Trump’s first 180 days in office. But rather than focus on introducing a major jobs plan, Trump is instead hellbent on slashing his family’s taxes while taking away millions of working people’s healthcare,” said American Bridge spokesman Brad Bainum. “Happy Made in America Week from the ‘greatest jobs president that God ever created’!”
The layoffs come as the White House celebrates “Made in America” week.
By Igor Bobic, 7/19/17
Harley-Davidson is planning on cutting 180 manufacturing jobs at its plants in Milwaukee and Kansas City, Missouri, according to The Milwaukee Business Journal.
The layoffs come at an awkward time for President Donald Trump, whose administration is highlighting products manufactured in the United States during what it has dubbed “Made in America” week at the White House.
Trump hosted Harley-Davidson executives and the union officials representing its workers in February at the White House. The president hailed the company as a model of American manufacturing, an industry he promised to restore. He further praised Harley-Davidson executives “for building things in America” and predicted the company would expand its operations during his administration.
“There’s a lot of spirit right now in the country that you weren’t having so much in the last number of months that you have right now,” Trump said at the meeting.
The Milwaukee-based company said in late May it planned to build a plant in Thailand to supply its Southeast Asia market, however, a move that U.S. labor unions called “a slap in the face to the American worker.”
Harley-Davidson is not the first company hailed by Trump to announce it is cutting jobs. Last month, aerospace giant Boeing said it was laying off workers at the very plant where Trump gave a speech promising to protect U.S. jobs. The president’s assurances about saving jobs at Carrier and Ford similarly fell flat after the companies announced rounds of layoffs.
Published: Jul 19, 2017