President-elect Donald Trump snapped at a union president who represents some Carrier employees Wednesday after the union boss suggested Trump was not truthful about the number of jobs that would be saved in the president-elect's deal with the Indianapolis air-conditioning manufacturer.
"Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers," Trump said in a tweet. "No wonder companies flee country!"
The president-elect followed up with another tweet accusing union leaders of not doing enough to save the jobs that were threatened.
"If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues," Trump wrote.
Trump's spat with Jones began after the president-elect involved himself with Carrier's plans to move jobs from its Indianapolis plant to Mexico.
Trump touted his actions as integral in helping save what workers believed to be about 1,100 jobs. Carrier actually decided to only keep about 800 jobs and outsource about 550 to Mexico — a detail Jones said Trump neglected to mention when he announced the deal at a press conference last week.
“But he got up there and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off," Jones told the Washington Post.
In addition to the jobs lost at the Indiana plant, Carrier's parent company, United Technologies, still has plans to relocate its Huntington, Indiana, plant to Mexico, putting another 700 jobs on the chopping block. In total, an estimated 1,300 Carrier employees will still lose their jobs.
In an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday, Jones said he was grateful for Trump's intervention in Indianapolis, but continued to criticize Trump for his mischaracterization of the numbers of jobs that were saved.
“ I just wish that he would have had the numbers down and he had been upfront with 800 people’s jobs staying here in Indianapolis," Jones said.
“Where he did wrong was by promising 1,100 some-odd jobs would remain in Indianapolis and he saved them and it was a falsehood. I think he got caught up in a deal where he would need to bail out and the way he did it was by attacking me,” Jones said in a follow-up interview after Trump sniped at Jones in a tweet.
“I didn’t attack him," Jones said, "I just called him out on what I felt like he misled the people.”
Following Trump's comments about Jones, a March tweet showing Vice President-elect Mike Pence praising him and Steelworkers 1999 for their hard work was noticed by observers on Twitter.
Appreciate the chance to meet w/ Chuck Jones & hardworking men of Local 1999 about our efforts to save Carrier jobs pic.twitter.com/jAzV4DO4PY
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) March 2, 2016 Watch Jones' interview below:
.@Carrier union boss on Trump's negative tweet about him: "I think that's pretty low down" https://t.co/UYpqI3w42L https://t.co/34U7xPeLfc
— CNN (@CNN) December 8, 2016
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