Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed It

Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed It

 

By Dave Johnson

Campaign for America's Future

February 19, 2010

 

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020719/whirlpool-bites-american-taxpayers-feed-it

 

Whirlpool, recipient of federal stimulus "smart grid"

dollars, is closing an Evansville, Indiana freezer-

topped refrigerator and icemaker production plant and

moving the 1,100 jobs to Mexico.

 

Whirlpool knows that taxpayers will shoulder the

unemployment and other costs. Closing a plant like this

also means all the supplier, transportation and other

third-party jobs go away. For example, 100+ Disabled

Workers Could Lose Jobs

 

    Whirlpool employees aren't the only ones losing

    their jobs when the plant closes. More than 100

    blind or disabled individuals could also be left

    jobless. The Evansville Association for the Blind

    has issued a public plea, asking businesses to

    consider using their employees.

 

There will be more home foreclosures, and local

businesses are stressed or have to go out of business.

Whirlpool is profiting from making all this someone

else's problem.

 

Whirlpool is even playing nearby Iowa against Indiana,

shaking the state down for millions to move just 60 of

the 1,100 jobs there.

 

So, of course, Wall Street celebrates the move, the

setting states against each other, the cost-shifting

and the resulting "increase in margins."

 

The workers are still trying to do something about

this. Inside Indiana Business writes about a rally on

February 26,

 

    Organizers have invited guests including AFL/CIO

    President Richard Trumka and Jim Clark, president

    of the IUE-CWA union with which Local 808 is affiliated.

 

    Employees with the least seniority are expected to

    lose their jobs first, March 26. The remaining

    workers will be let go until production ceases in

    early summer.

 

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President, writes:

 

    The Whirlpool Corp. is closing a refrigerator

    manufacturing plant in Evansville, Ind., putting

    more than 1,100 people out of work. Even worse,

    Whirlpool will continue to produce these

    refrigerators, but not in Evansville and not

    anywhere else in America. They are planning to

    manufacture them in Mexico, where weaker labor and

    environmental laws make them "cheaper" for

    Whirlpool to produce.

 

    This is outrageous and unacceptable, especially in

    light of Whirlpool's profitability and the $19

    million dollars in economic recovery money

    Whirlpool recently received from the federal

    government as a part of the American Recovery and

    Reinvestment Act. Those are OUR economic recovery

    funds, not Mexico's.

 

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