Draper Alumbaugh focused on the big picture when he learned that his job could be going to Mexico soon.
“It’s pretty simple what these corporate people want,” he said in a video posted last week by Indiana news station RTV6. “They want to pay people nothing and they want to profit everything.”
Alumbaugh, 37, works for Rexnord Corp., a manufacturing firm that may be sending almost 300 jobs to a plant in Mexico next year. The company told The Indianapolis Star the “tentative” relocation would be completed in June, and that officials “invited the union to join us in an open and frank discussion over this potential relocation and the impact it would have on Rexnord associates and their families.”
The company is profitable. Wall Street values it at almost $2 billion. It recorded a profit of $18.9 million in the most recent quarter, and is sitting on $183 million in straight cash. It bought $40 million of its own stock in 2016, a move that boosts returns for investors by raising the value of the company’s shares.
“My good-paying job ― it’s gone,” Alumbaugh says in the video. “Because of greed. Greed! Nothing else.”
Rexnord did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This company makes over $20 million a month selling heavy-duty bearings across the world,” Alumbaugh says in the clip. “All of a sudden we can’t compete? No, I don’t think that’s what the case is. The case is CEOs are on the average of 53,000 times the normal pay of an average employee. I wonder what’s wrong with our country.”
Rexnord CEO Todd Adams was paid $1.5 million in 2016, $1.7 million in 2015 and $2.1 million in 2014. Last year, executives at S&P 500 companies earned, on average, about $12 million ― or 335 times more than their workers, according to an analysis by the AFL-CIO.
Rexnord joins a list of Indiana companies shifting some operations to Mexico this year. Carrier Corporation and United Technologies Electronic Controls also announced hundreds of U.S. layoffs in favor of Mexican workers.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump used the Carrier news as an opportunity to denounce U.S. trade policy.
“We’re not going to let Carrier come in, make air conditioners in Mexico and sell them to us across a very strong border, now,” Trump said in July. “We’re going to tell them, if you want to sell your air conditioners, you’re going to pay a 35 percent tax. And you know what’s going to happen? They’re not going to move.”
Were Trump to carry out that threat, it would be a straightforward violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump has vowed to “renegotiate” all U.S. trade deals to eliminate the trade deficit, but has not offered specific details.
The United Steelworkers Local 1999, which represents both Carrier and Rexnord workers, is not a huge fan of Trump, but has no plans to endorse Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, either. The union supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primary and Democrat John Gregg in the race to replace Mike Pence, who is leaving his job as Indiana’s governor in hopes of becoming Trump’s vice president.
Local union president Chuck Jones denounced both Carrier and Rexnord for shifting operations despite the companies’ profitability.
“It’s nothing but pure and simple corporate greed and unfair trade that’s going to cost these people their livelihoods,” Jones told The Huffington Post.
In an interview, Alumbaugh said he appreciates Trump’s tough talk on trade and will probably vote for him.
“That’s one of the reasons he’s hated so much ― he’s speaking the truth,” Alumbaugh said.
“I’m biased ― neither one of them are very good candidates,” he said. But “I definitely probably steer to the guy that’s trying to save my job.”
This article has been updated with additional comments from Alumbaugh.
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