By Brian Slodysko
July 2, 2017
When Chuck Jones joined
the United Steel Workers, unions flexed their power to strike and crossing a
picket line could be met with brute force.
That's now a distant
memory, says the retiring president of USW Local 1999, who grabbed headlines in
December after he publicly accused then-President-elect Donald Trump of lying
about how many jobs he was saving in a deal with furnace and air conditioner
maker Carrier Corp.
Like unions across the U.S., the Indianapolis local, which
represents workers from Carrier and bearing manufacturer Rexnord Corp., has
shed members as factories downsized or shuttered. Many are moving to Mexico,
where labor is cheaper.
"You want to leave a job better than you got it. But
working-class people in general — we're not doing good," said Jones, 65,
whose thick, gray mustache, artful use of profanity and ever-present cigarette
wedged between his fingers give him the appearance of union boss straight from
central casting.
Jones became a steel
worker straight out of high school in 1969 during a high tide of the U.S. labor
movement that helped propel a generation of blue-collar workers into the middle
class. He says his retirement at the beginning of June was
"bittersweet" after decades of declining fortunes for working people.
Elected as the local's
vice president in 1985, just before the union went on strike, Jones at one
point could command workers to shut down their machines if labor issues weren't
resolved. He was made president in 1996, two years after President Bill Clinton finalized the North American Free
Trade Agreement, which led to a big increase in trade among the U.S., Mexico
and Canada, but also encouraged U.S. manufacturers to relocate operations to
Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor there. Jones' union has also been
affected by changes in Indiana that made it easier to replace striking workers
and by passage of a right-to-work law that made union membership optional.
"I used to have a little bit of power," Jones said.
"Now the story is completely different. First off, the guy is going to
say, '(Expletive) you, I ain't shutting nothing down.'"
In recent years, contract negotiations have been aimed at trying
to give up as few benefits as possible while making sure wages keep pace with
inflation. Helplessness has set in, he says.
Last year Carrier, its parent company United Technologies, and
Rexnord all announced plans to shut down at least part of their Indiana
operations. All told, about 1,700 jobs are expected to be cut, including about
850 union workers at Carrier and Rexnord.
"If they woulda come to us and said, 'Hey, you guys are
making too much money, we need you to work with us on being more competitive,'
could we have got there? I don't know. But we sure as hell would have
tried," said Jones, who feels that people have unjustly blamed unions as
uncompetitive. "Neither company came to us."
U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, the lone
Democrat elected statewide in Indiana, agreed that the union isn't to blame.
"What happened with Carrier and what happened with Rexnord
and what is happening around the country isn't because the workers didn't keep
their end of the deal," Donnelly said. "Chuck and his team, they
basically got thrown under the bus."
Rexnord issued a statement standing by the relocation of its
Indianapolis operations, saying "difficult decisions are a part of today's
business environment."
As for Carrier, the workers' plight drew the attention of Trump,
who brokered a deal with the company, setting the stage for a moment of
fleeting glory for Jones as he prepared to retire.
During a hyped-up announcement at its Indianapolis factory,
Trump inaccurately said that 1,100 jobs would be saved. The number was closer
to 800.
Jones wasn't having it and told reporters Trump had lied about
the numbers. Trump attacked the union boss on Twitter for doing a
"terrible job representing workers" while suggesting that "if
United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in
Indiana."
In the frenzy that followed, Jones received flowers as well as
hate mail. He still stands behind his words, but allows that he could have
"toned it down."
"How (Trump) feels about me, I could care less," Jones
said. He went on to add that it's not that he's tough, using another expletive,
"because I'm not. I'm an old man. But I've been around here some 30 odd
years. I've had people threaten to burn my house down. People threaten to shoot
me when I leave."
At his retirement party, gifts included a carton of cigarettes,
booze — and a framed image of Trump, featuring his tweets about Jones.
Now Jones plans to spend more time with his 13 grandchildren.
He's also contemplating a run for local office, though he won't say which one.
"If I could help people out, especially working people, I'd
consider it."
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