Carrier plant to lay off 215 workers on Thursday

Carrier has announced 215 workers will lose their jobs at its Indianapolis heating and air conditioning plant this week, the last of about 600 previously announced layoffs.

To register their displeasure, many of the workers will gather Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at a west-side bar to call on President Donald Trump to stop manufacturing jobs from leaving the United States. 

The “The State of the Working Class” event, sponsored by Good Jobs Nation, is at Sully’s Bar and Grill, 1229 S. Girls School Road. The workers will discuss how the impending job loss has affected them and will demand that Trump use his State of the Union address to recommit to stopping the outsourcing jobs, according to a news release from Good Jobs Nation.

The workers' last day is Thursday. In July, Carrier laid off 340 workers at the plant.

The gathering will be live-streamed at https://www.facebook.com/GoodJobsNation.

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Carrier announced plans in 2016 to move all of its Indianapolis operations to Monterrey, Mexico, and close the west-side factory. The pending layoffs became a flashpoint during the presidential election when Carrier's parent company United Technologies announced it would cut 2,100 jobs in Indiana. Trump slammed the decision on the campaign trail and threatened to "tax the hell" out of Carrier's products.

Before he took office, Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence struck a deal with Carrier to keep about half the jobs from going to Mexico. As part of the deal, the plant received up to $7 million in conditional state tax incentives and training grants and agreed to stay open in Indianapolis for 10 years.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said the city was facing a possible loss of 1,300 to 1,400 jobs at Carrier before Trump stepped in. The city was able to get Carrier to repay some tax incentives it had offered at the local level.

United Technologies said in a news release that 1,100 workers remain at the Indianapolis plant. It said 60 laid-off workers have registered in the company’s programs to pursue educational degrees.

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Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418. Follow on Twitter and Facebook.