Local reactions to Trump’s tweet at Carrier union rep

President-elect Donald Trump used Twitter late Wednesday to pound the union chief who had sharply criticized the President-elect’s claims to have saved more than 1,000 jobs at the “Carrier plant in Indianapolis”, and set off a war of words over who best represents American workers. Under the deal with Trump, Carrier only agreed to keep the part of the plant that builds furnaces open, saving the 800 jobs in Indianapolis.

Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, also plans to move 700 jobs from the United Technologies Electronic Controls factory in Huntington, Indiana to Mexico.

However, Chuck noted that Trump and Pence should have only bragged about saving 800 Carrier jobs, not a higher number of jobs.

The US president-elect said Chuck Jones had done a “terrible job” for workers at Carrier, moments after Mr Jones had criticised Mr Trump on CNN. “He got up in front of the Carrier people last Thursday and said that he didn’t campaign to try and tell people that he was interested in saving the Carrier jobs and he just told an out and out falsehood there.” said Jones.

In New York City, Mayor de Blasio slapped Trump with a tweet saying union bosses like Jones “are going to save this country from your anti-worker policies”.

USW members across Northwest Indiana voiced their support for Jones, posting statements like “I support USW LU 1999 President Chuck Jones” on Facebook and tweeting with the hashtag #ImWithChuck.

Jones said numerous workers whose jobs may now be saved are grateful to Trump, but that some workers who are still anxious about losing their jobs are angry. Trump touted more than 1,000 saved jobs. So I told a Washington Post reporter the truth – that Trump’s 1,100 number was wrong.

“If you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods, you sure in the world ought to know what the numbers are”, Jones told CNN.

The union leader’s phone began ringing off the hook about half an hour after the Trump tweet on Wednesday with some calls seeming innocuous, The Washington Post reports, but one caller apparently said, “We’re coming for you”.

Donald Trump owes Chuck Jones an apology.

“But he got up there, and, for whatever reason, lied his ass off”. The state’s pending incentives deal with the company does indeed call on Carrier to retain more than 1,050 jobs. Trump claimed that in turn, Carrier would keep 1100 jobs in IL. Jones jested Thursday afternoon at the union office in Indianapolis. “No, what he says, that don’t bother me”. “We know what auto you drive”. “Are we pleased with some of the jobs being saved?”

The spat is the second time this week that the president-elect has attacked an organisation that has criticised him. The company declined to say how numerous plants 800 remaining jobs could be lost to automation, or when.