Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Now Whirlpool Threatens Workers Who Protest Plant Closing


I found this amazing story at the Campaign for America's Future blog.  Not only is Whirlpool planning to close a plant in Indiana, throwing the union workers out of work.  Now they are threatening the "future employment opportunities" of the workers if they use their first amendment rights to protest the closing!  You can send a message to Whirlpool with the link at the bottom of the story.


Dave Johnson's picture
By Dave Johnson
February 24, 2010 - 4:15pm ET

The other day I posted Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed Itsaying, in summary,
    • Whirlpool closes a plant in Evansville
    • Taxpayers will shoulder the unemployment and other costs.
    • All the local supplier, transportation and other third-party jobs are destroyed.
    • Even more home foreclosures in the area as a result.
    • Local businesses are stressed or have to go out of business.
    • They are playing nearby Iowa against Indiana for tax breaks and subsidies to keep just a few of the jobs.
    • Whirlpool is profiting from making all this someone else's problem.
    • And, of course, Wall Street celebrates the move.
A Whirlpool spokesperson responded, leading to the post, Whirlpool Exec Responds: The System Made Us Do It, taking a look at the bigger picture that forces our companies like Whirlpool to do these things that destroy people, communities and our economy,
"The spokesperson for Whirlpool is exactly right. It is the system that makes them do this. They are only following the market’s orders."
I thought that was the end of it, but whoa, what's this? Whirlpool Threatens Workers: Protesting Plant Closure Risks 'Future Jobs'
A major corporation planning to shut down a factory in Indiana has warned its union workers that they'll endanger their future job prospects if they protest the plant's closing.
. . . Activists planned a high-profile protest for this Friday, with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka visiting the plant for the first time. But Whirlpool says the effort is futile -- they are fully committed to shutting the plant down. The company, however, still seems quite wary of the potential for bad publicity. In a memo sent to its employees and passed along to the Huffington Post, Paul Coburn, division vice president for Whirlpool's Evansville Division, offers a fairly explicit warning to his workers: If they join Trumka's protest they would seriously risk future employment opportunity.
Threatening workers who show up at the protest that they risk future employment?Click through to read the entire report and to see Whirlpool's letter.

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