Friday, Dec. 29, 2017

[0] Hi, it's Michael.

[1] This week, The Daily has been revisiting favorite episodes of the year, listening back and then hearing what's happened in the time since the stories first ran.

[2] Today, Shannon.

[3] From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

[4] This is The Daily.

[5] Today.

[6] Shannon Mulcahy's job in an Indiana steel plan was headed to Mexico.

[7] Donald Trump vowed to keep those kinds of jobs.

[8] inside the United States, how the promise of America First has collided with the reality of American manufacturing.

[9] It's Wednesday, October 18th.

[10] I'm going to bring jobs back.

[11] We're bringing jobs back to our country.

[12] We're not going to let carrier leave.

[13] We're going to take numbers.

[14] We're going to do numbers.

[15] There are consequences when you leave and we'll talk about carrier because say what you want in the end.

[16] I've been I'm talking about Carrier now for four months, right?

[17] Before I even knew that we were going to be coming, I mean, literally from the day, literally from the day.

[18] Just a mile down the road from the Carrier plant in Indianapolis is the Rexnerd plant, where steelworkers have been manufacturing the Cadillac of steel bearings for nearly 60 years, strengthening the parts through a process known as heat treating.

[19] I've got to say I've never ran scrap the whole time I've been there.

[20] You've never run scrap?

[21] Okay, I guess that's kind of shop talk.

[22] Scrap is like a bad part, like knowing that it's bad and you send it on through.

[23] Shannon Mulcahy worked at Rexnerd for almost 18 years.

[24] In Heat Treat, it's got to be pretty much perfect.

[25] You know, we've got different customers that depend on that bearing and it can't fail out on the field.

[26] I mean, whether it be conveyor or a bridge, different things like that.

[27] that and to hurt somebody out there on the field.

[28] And if you get that part, say, you didn't temper it enough, okay, that will lead to the part cracking and breaking.

[29] Some of these are infrastructure that carry human beings back and forth.

[30] It would seem pretty vital.

[31] I take pride of my work.

[32] Shannon is a 43 -year -old single mother of two who dropped out of high school.

[33] My colleague, Farah Stockman, has been reporting on the plant.

[34] She was a legacy hire.

[35] My uncle Gary got me a job on there.

[36] It started out as a janitor.

[37] And at the time, you had to know someone to get a job at this factory.

[38] And so she begged him for a job.

[39] Yeah.

[40] Wasn't kind of like the janitor who cleans the bathrooms.

[41] It was the janitor who shovels out the machine chips and the coolant, fill the coolant, pump out the machines of the coolant.

[42] It was a nasty job.

[43] But I stuck with it.

[44] I was actually working as an assembly at this time.

[45] when I signed a heat treat job.

[46] I was trained by what I call the old timers.

[47] The old timers would say heat treat is not for a woman.

[48] And they hazed her.

[49] They tried a lot of different ways to kind of get her to quit.

[50] And I'll be honest with you, I was ready to walk out that department.

[51] We was doing a light up on the furnaces, which that's the most dangerous part of your job.

[52] To turn the furnace on?

[53] Yeah, to light the furnaces.

[54] And I was going, yep, yep, listening to.

[55] He goes, now go over there and open that valve over there.

[56] And he didn't say open it slowly or anything.

[57] So I just went over there and I opened that valve and that son of a gun went, boom.

[58] It scared the crap out of me. And I really was really thinking about leaving at that point.

[59] But I didn't.

[60] I actually learned from them sabotaging better than anything, I think.

[61] Because I had to figure it out.

[62] You got to go up these stairs.

[63] then you got to go down the stairs to turn the machine on which is on this panel and Shannon got to know these machines really well and she had personalities assigned to these machines and her favorite one was the taco I know it like the back of my hand I felt like I bonded with that machine I mean the taco was probably my best furnace say that I'll I would run for all the years that I've been there.

[64] It was me and the taco.

[65] She talks about the taco.

[66] Like, it's a needy boyfriend that breaks down whenever she doesn't spend time with it.

[67] Anybody was having problems and couldn't get it to run.

[68] I was sent over there to try to troubleshoot to get that thing to run.

[69] She was essentially in charge of the furnaces there and working with dangerous gases, working with fire in a position that no woman had ever done before.

[70] When I would do setups, you know, on the taco, like I didn't have a CD player because of all the oil in the air and stuff.

[71] But sometimes it would be so hot in there that music would take your mind off of how hot you really are in the heat tree.

[72] Metallica, and then we got Bob Seeger, Leonard Skinner.

[73] It would be like 125 degrees sometimes.

[74] She was known for being able to tell if the parts were going to come out right just by the sound of the spinning machine.

[75] Like when you're running apart and it's going to sound stupid over this, but there's like a frequency sound, okay?

[76] And whereas some guys like to go back and look at the power supply and watch the numbers, I don't do that.

[77] I just, I can tell by the sound.

[78] The sound.

[79] She could just hear from the pitch whether she needed to add.

[80] energy or add heat, she just knew the machines that well that she could do it by feel.

[81] It's like a high -pitched tone.

[82] It's very unique.

[83] I can't say anything sounds like it because it doesn't.

[84] If it's got a really dull pitch, a really low, bogged down sound.

[85] I know that's not good.

[86] And then if it's got a high pitch, I know it's good.

[87] This is a really detailed and involved process you're describing.

[88] Yes, it is.

[89] It takes experience.

[90] It's not something you can just train overnight.

[91] I will say that.

[92] It takes experience.

[93] It takes time.

[94] So I really got this picture after spending so much time with Shannon of how she had really grown up in the factory.

[95] She started age 25 when she was this hot young thing that would turn heads on the factory floor.

[96] And by the time she was 43, she was a woman who was used to having oil in her hands.

[97] She would come home.

[98] and her kids would say you smell like cars, you smell like a mechanic.

[99] I guess that was just my style, and I liked the fact that I didn't have to get up and put makeup on and all that stuff and try to look pretty to go to work.

[100] I could roll out of bed and do my makeup there if I had to or not even wear makeup.

[101] So that's the part I like.

[102] She became one of the best because she worked her way up from a janitor all the way to being a heat treat operator, which was one of the highest paid positions on the fact.

[103] floor.

[104] I was paid 25, 16 an hour.

[105] I started out at $7 .53 an hour when I started out there.

[106] And then I would say I would work 10 hours a day, five days a week, and then I'd work eight hours Saturday and Sunday.

[107] And I would bring home a little over a grand a week.

[108] Good money.

[109] Yes, it is good money.

[110] I mean, financially, this job was a big opportunity for you.

[111] Very big opportunity for me. Never would have dreamed.

[112] you know, that I was able to make that money and drive a nice car and not have to embarrass my daughter by taking her to school.

[113] Like my mom, I hate to say it, God bless her.

[114] My mom was a single mother and she didn't have a college degree or anything.

[115] She worked cleaning rooms and restaurants, so we really never had anything, much of anything growing up as a kid.

[116] I wouldn't even go to the store with my mom sometimes because I was embarrassed because she had to use food stamps.

[117] And I mean, I liked having that kind of money.

[118] I bought me a new car, a house, and I can go in and buy my groceries with money that I worked for.

[119] You know, this job here would be able to, I'll be able to stand on my own two feet and be able to take care of myself and not depend on anybody.

[120] You don't depend on no man. I mean, no offense, but you never know about men.

[121] I don't depend on them because you never know.

[122] It sounds like men may have also disappointed you somehow.

[123] I'll be honest with you there, yeah, all my life.

[124] She was a domestic violence survivor, essentially, and she basically was liberated by getting this job at this factory in a position that no woman had ever done before.

[125] So on October 14, 2016, I had just gotten to work.

[126] She came in that Friday, and...

[127] My boss comes to me and says, Shannon, he said, I want you shut everything down, put the...

[128] And he said, well, when you're done, just come to a meeting in the back dock.

[129] And I'm like, what?

[130] Are you serious?

[131] And he's like, yes, please.

[132] By the time she was done, she started walking to the meeting and she could hear her co -workers yelling.

[133] And they were just told that the factory was closing and their jobs would move to a new plant in Mexico, Monterey, Mexico, and another facility in McAllen, Texas.

[134] I know that this is an incredibly tough message, and you guys have a lot of questions.

[135] And this time, because we've just engaged and we've just invited the steel workers to start talking, I don't have any further information, and I can't answer any questions.

[136] And some of these workers had spent their whole lives in this plant.

[137] They were totally shocked, even though the company had been seen.

[138] secretly planning this for years.

[139] There's got to be a tough job to do that everywhere you go, huh?

[140] Oh, I mean, I made it to my car, and I cried and cried, and I just, Ms. Lincoln, what am I going to do?

[141] Even though I made good money, I still worked paycheck to paycheck.

[142] I didn't plan on saving any money for something like this to happen, you know?

[143] I would have never thought.

[144] And this was a really tough time for her because Shannon also had a daughter who was a high school senior who wanted to be the first in her family to go to college and Shannon wanted to try to help her pay for it.

[145] I was freaking out like, because I don't want her future to be ruined because I lost my job and unable to pay for her to go to college.

[146] And she also had a son who was really financially struggling, didn't have a job, depended on her financially, and he had a four -year -old daughter who was disabled and And they both depended on Shannon's paycheck.

[147] She was the breadwinner of the house.

[148] I got to have a riff over her head and, you know, a decent place for her to live.

[149] You know, if it was just me, I mean, I can live on the street if I had to.

[150] I don't want to.

[151] That's all of that.

[152] But, you know, it can happen that quick.

[153] I just want to be sure I understand your financial and familial obligations at this point when you hear that your employer is going to be moved.

[154] all these jobs to Mexico.

[155] You have your house.

[156] Yes.

[157] You have your car.

[158] You have a son who doesn't work.

[159] You have a daughter you're helping to support and you have a quite sick granddaughter.

[160] Yes.

[161] As well as just yourself and everything that you need to do to take care of yourself.

[162] Am I missing anything?

[163] No, in my dogs.

[164] The night that it happened, she drives home, she's incredibly upset and she writes on Facebook that she's, She wishes that someone would burn the factory in Mexico to the ground.

[165] Wow.

[166] She was so upset and she just didn't know what to do next.

[167] She couldn't believe that it wasn't against the law.

[168] How could this not be against the law to send people's jobs overseas?

[169] What is going to?

[170] We are going to make this decision now.

[171] The Fox News Decision Desk has called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump.

[172] And then a few weeks.

[173] later, Donald Trump wins the election.

[174] Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States elect.

[175] He spoke to the disaffected.

[176] And she suddenly becomes hopeful that he's going to save her job.

[177] And she's not the only one.

[178] A lot of the coworkers at this factory felt like he was definitely going to save their job, especially after Trump started tweeting about them.

[179] The president tweeted about their company.

[180] Yes.

[181] You know, Rexnor is firing 300 workers, no more.

[182] We'll be right back.

[183] Well, the tweet from President Donald Trump criticizes Indianapolis manufacturer Rexnor for moving a plant and jobs to Mexico.

[184] In Indiana company's decision to move to Mexico is getting renewed attention tonight from President Trump.

[185] He tweeted this evening.

[186] It said, Rexner of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers.

[187] This is happening all over our country.

[188] No more.

[189] I thought, well, wow, he does notice us people that's down here, you know?

[190] And they spent hours debating, like, what does that mean?

[191] No more, no more, including Rexnord, or is Rexnord included in the no more?

[192] But a lot of them really took it as a sign of hope.

[193] He's going to save this factory.

[194] I was very hopeful.

[195] All of us were hopeful.

[196] A lot of us there at Rexnord was thinking that he might step in and stop what was going on, you know?

[197] So you believe that Trump could potentially?

[198] I mean, he's a president.

[199] Why couldn't he?

[200] He can do whatever he wants, right?

[201] To the point, I mean, I just kind of thought, you know, because he's kind of like a cowboy.

[202] He says things probably like a lot of past presidents wouldn't save.

[203] So, I mean, the way he talked about American jobs and all that, I was thinking, you know, this could be the opportunity where he's right that, you know, a lot of our jobs might come back from overseas and things like that.

[204] And a lot of people get their jobs back.

[205] That would be awesome.

[206] You know?

[207] She voted for Obama in 2008.

[208] I did vote for Obama, and I do still to this day say that Obama is a good president and was a good president.

[209] And, you know, I wish he could be there again.

[210] She liked what he did for health care.

[211] And she thought about voting for Hillary because Hillary talked about the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is something that Shannon had used when her granddaughter got sick.

[212] But at the end of the day, the job was the most important thing for Shannon.

[213] It was her entire life.

[214] It was her identity.

[215] The other things were, you know, they were luxuries.

[216] They were a social safety net that she didn't want to have to need.

[217] So she was on social media supporting Trump.

[218] She would tweet to him.

[219] Anytime you tweet about Rexnor, she tweeted back.

[220] He was all over her Facebook page.

[221] She felt like he did care about people like her and spoke her language.

[222] So she got really excited and thought that maybe they would have a chance.

[223] that he would swoop in and save them.

[224] I assume this isn't all for me. First of all, welcome to Carrier, Indianapolis.

[225] And it's an honor to welcome President -elect Trump, as well as Vice President -elect Pence, and the new governor, Governor Holcomb from Indiana today.

[226] A couple weeks after Trump wins, he comes to Indianapolis and announces this deal to save some jobs at a plant called Carrier.

[227] And, in fact, it's the same union.

[228] And the president -elect, of the United States of America, Donald Trump.

[229] So the people at the Rex Nord plan get their hopes up even more.

[230] And you can see on their Facebook pages, a lot of them are like, he gets results.

[231] It's going to happen.

[232] You have to understand, we can't allow this to happen anymore with our country.

[233] So many jobs are leaving and going to other countries, not just Mexico, many, many countries.

[234] But we're losing companies.

[235] It's unbelievable, one after another.

[236] Just one after another.

[237] We're going to have a lot of phone calls made to companies when they say they're thinking about leaving this country because they're not leaving this country.

[238] They're not going to leave this country.

[239] And the workers are going to keep their jobs.

[240] And they can leave from state to state.

[241] And they can negotiate good deals with the different states and all of that.

[242] But leaving the country is going to be very, very difficult.

[243] So they get even more excited.

[244] But the company keeps pressing forward with its plans.

[245] And you see a letter from the, CEO hanging on the bulletin board saying, nope, we're moving.

[246] And we're going to bring Mexican trainees into the plant in the next few weeks.

[247] And we want you to train your replacements.

[248] And if you don't, you're not going to get a severance package.

[249] So every single worker on that factory floor was faced with a decision of do I train my replacement or do I refuse?

[250] And there was a huge divide.

[251] between the ones who decided to train their replacements and the ones who stood up and said no. To see what's going on across this entire country is disgusting.

[252] It's disgusting.

[253] It's nothing but corporate greed.

[254] We all know that.

[255] That's what we're talking about today is corporate greed.

[256] If you don't train this company screw, they have to have us to train.

[257] If we stick together like we're supposed to within a union, they're screwed.

[258] They don't have anybody to teach them anything.

[259] A lot of the union reps, the union itself, really encouraged people not to train their replacements.

[260] As a protest.

[261] As a protest, they thought they could save the plant because the corporate bosses and many of the supervisors didn't know anything about building a bearing.

[262] And they couldn't train the Mexican replacements.

[263] So they needed those workers to pass that knowledge on.

[264] And the workers knew that.

[265] So a lot of the people in the union were like, we should just refuse.

[266] Only I have that knowledge.

[267] Only my co -workers have that knowledge.

[268] Do you know anybody who agreed to train?

[269] Absolutely.

[270] My guy on day shift that I followed would agree to train.

[271] Talk to him every day.

[272] What do you think about it?

[273] I think there's scabs.

[274] Just to be honest with him.

[275] It's no different if we were out on strike, can you cross the picket line in my eyes?

[276] It was a very divisive time.

[277] Friendships ended.

[278] People stopped speaking to each other.

[279] I didn't want to, like, go verbally attack him.

[280] Motions were high.

[281] I didn't want to go verbally, just attack him and assault him.

[282] And so I let a couple of days go by, and I just basically said, man, I can't believe you're going to do that.

[283] You know, you're selling us all out.

[284] One guy walked out of the factory and quit when he heard that his friend had signed up to train.

[285] He just walked out and ended his own career there.

[286] Walked away from severance, walked away from everything and quit.

[287] He left, like, more than $10 ,000 in severance.

[288] And I later talked to him, and he said, yeah, it's a little bit of the severance.

[289] It's just depressing to see that you ain't got a future.

[290] You know, we talk a lot in this country about the white working class.

[291] The working class, we talk about it like it's white.

[292] But in fact, the working class is not white.

[293] There's a lot of black people in the working class.

[294] And this factory was about 40 % black.

[295] And from what I could tell, people really got along.

[296] They were on the bowling team together.

[297] They went to Colts games together.

[298] They ate dinner at each other's houses.

[299] there were at least two romances that I knew of that were interracial.

[300] It was a very interracial factory.

[301] But I noticed a pattern, a lot of the people who were so upset about the closing, the people who walked out without their severance or the people who went on television and talked about how they felt like nothing.

[302] They were so outraged by this.

[303] They were white.

[304] And when you talk to the black workers, so many of them made the decision to train right away from the beginning and with no shame.

[305] They just raised their hands.

[306] They said, I'm going to get that money.

[307] We can't change this decision.

[308] We can't stop it.

[309] Let's just agree to train and get that money.

[310] Farah, how do you account for the grievances of the white worker and their unwillingness to train the Mexican workers versus the general willingness of the black workers in the factory to participate in that?

[311] You can see a lot of studies, nationwide studies, about the American dream and optimism.

[312] And you'll find that working class whites are very pessimistic about the future.

[313] They don't believe the future is going to be better than the past.

[314] Because they've seen their economic prospects decline for 30 years.

[315] You know, in the 60s, that factory was probably all white men.

[316] And in order to get a job there, you had to pretty much know someone in there.

[317] So they had like a monopoly on all those jobs.

[318] And then over time, you see their monopoly on the job disappears.

[319] There's no denying that the economic prospects of a white guy without a college degree has declined pretty dramatically over the last three years.

[320] Whereas everybody else have still seen an upward climb because they started from such a low place.

[321] And so I think when you talk to black workers, one, they didn't feel entitled to the job.

[322] And two, they thought, well, we're used to it.

[323] We're used to bad things happening to us.

[324] And three, I think they still feel like the best days are ahead.

[325] What about the women in the factory?

[326] I mean, I think the women were also more willing to volunteer to train.

[327] Maybe they needed the money more, or maybe they remembered what it was like when people didn't want to train them.

[328] I stopped and I thought about it, you know.

[329] Shannon's granddaughter.

[330] had spent months in a coma that year.

[331] She had lost all her fingers.

[332] Somehow, the cannula punctured through her heart, so she went into cardiac rest.

[333] She has a scar on her chest.

[334] I took my eyeliner, and I traced the scar around her chest, and it looks just like an angel wings, right on the front, because she had like four open heart surgeries that week.

[335] She doesn't walk anymore.

[336] She don't talk anymore.

[337] She has a trache.

[338] She lost all of her fingers on her.

[339] her right hand and she lost all the tips of her finger on her, yeah.

[340] But I'll tell you what, she's a fighter because she's still here and she's a still, she's a happy little baby.

[341] She goes through a lot.

[342] I always think, you know, things could be worse.

[343] What is your granddaughter's name?

[344] Carmela.

[345] Carmela Linda Marie Roberts.

[346] So Shannon really has a lot on her shoulders this year.

[347] And she really thought, well, I need this money.

[348] I need this money.

[349] I need that.

[350] this money to take care of my family.

[351] And I'm going to take every dime I can get.

[352] And that's what's important here.

[353] That's what the main goal is here.

[354] It's all about that dollar bill, that mighty dollar bill.

[355] And you know what?

[356] I'm going to make it why I can make it because I'll never have a chance again to probably make that again.

[357] So ultimately, she decided to do the training.

[358] So when did the Mexican workers first arrive?

[359] So right around Christmas time, the first group comes and When they walk in the plant, some people freeze.

[360] I don't know.

[361] We just looked at them, you know.

[362] Everybody would be like, you know, the Mexican workers are here.

[363] You'd see them walk by in a group and stuff like that.

[364] And how did Shannon approach the Mexican workers?

[365] Did she resent them?

[366] Did she embrace them?

[367] I think once they came, she really pretty quickly formed a bond with them.

[368] She took one young Mexican trainee under her wing and really decided to train him the way that she'd been trained pretty much.

[369] I think I mother -hinned him kind of like he was just like he's my son's age.

[370] He's a good kid.

[371] You know, she could have just done the minimum.

[372] She could have just answered a few questions.

[373] But she wanted him to know the job and she trained him the way that she was trained.

[374] So she's passing on this knowledge.

[375] And that knowledge is really all these workers have, right?

[376] It's what makes them valuable as people in their minds and, I guess, in the factory itself.

[377] Tad, I call him Tad, because I never could really say his name right.

[378] After I trained him, he'd go to lunch, and he would come back, and he would brought me a cookie from his lunch, you know, and he says, my friend tells me that, you know, a lot of your people here doesn't like us.

[379] He says, I didn't know that I'm taking your job.

[380] I am so sorry that, and I said, no, I said, don't be sorry.

[381] I said, it's corporate greed.

[382] I said, I'm glad that you were able to have that opportunity like I was able to have that opportunity.

[383] I could tell from the heart he was very sincere about how he felt bad that he did not know.

[384] No one told them.

[385] No one told them.

[386] And so Shannon tried to be super nice and super upbeat with them, but she would never leave them alone in the factory.

[387] She took them everywhere she went.

[388] Because she feared something might happen to them?

[389] I mean, she didn't say it in so many words, but she didn't want anything to happen to them.

[390] So she protected them?

[391] Yes.

[392] Yes.

[393] Did she say why she did that?

[394] I mean, I think all of the trainers ended up really seeing their trainees as human beings and seeing themselves in this other person.

[395] Very respectful, very nice, very much so like me, you know.

[396] So what happens in the summer?

[397] fair so in august the last time i went to indianapolis was the sort of the culmination of all of this her daughter goes off to college she drops her daughter off at college and then the next day she goes into the factory and they're disconnecting her favorite machine the taco one of the mexican team is there and they're taking it away from her and i had to turn around and walk outside so that everybody didn't see me crying and it was upsetting very so because i was feeling like everything even now it's very upsetting because it's like um everything is gone and there's nothing i can do about it just get up and keep going it seemed like a pretty poignant moment um i believe it was actually caught on video of where you were in this kind of empty factory what was at this at this point what does it look like inside the factory.

[398] How many machines are left?

[399] What is it starting to look like?

[400] It looks like a ghost factory.

[401] The factory was so empty that I was able to ride our bicycle, off trail, shall I say, ride all around the factory on the bicycle because there was nothing left.

[402] That's how it looks.

[403] There's nothing left.

[404] At what point did it dawn on you that the, that the, the president, did nobody, but especially that the president couldn't do anything about this or wouldn't or to save the jobs.

[405] I don't know if he just couldn't or he just wouldn't.

[406] I felt kind of let down, shall I say, you know.

[407] I think he just said that just because of his campaign.

[408] Then after he's got in there, then he doesn't forgot about us.

[409] We don't matter anymore.

[410] you know oh he's going to raise the tariff and all this other stuff well why don't you why wouldn't you have done it or try to tell them or i don't know what they do but you know i he's got other things to tend to we're not i don't think that we're part of his uh agenda anymore that's obvious Shannon's last day was two weeks ago have to keep my keys in his time take care when it comes to doing my last uh loading the furnace for the last time it didn't hit me till till then things are just totally different and i'm trying to uh get adjusted and not feel so worthless i know i'm not worthless but i feel worthless why do you feel worthless because i feel like i don't feel as good about it as feeling secure to be able to support my family.

[411] That's why how they can just up and rip it away from you is just wrong.

[412] I mean, I can see, like I said, if we wasn't making any money or we was doing such a poor job, but the bottom line is when you're doing a good job and even tell you you're doing a good job and they turn around and just throw you to side like you're nothing, it's very hard to take and to swallow, you know, that, you know.

[413] And it's like, I'm not that marketable out there.

[414] Who's going to want an old woman now, you know?

[415] I think it's just been a roller coaster seven months.

[416] And I think now that it's over, she's finally got to sit down and look at her life and decide what she does next.

[417] Who does she become now that she's no longer the heat treat operator at the sparing factory?

[418] I lived and I breathed my job.

[419] I was in there a lot of times seven days a week for a lot of years.

[420] And I am grateful that my uncle got me that job.

[421] I am grateful and thankful that I was able to have that job because a lot of people don't look out that way because I didn't have a college degree.

[422] But, you know, I made as much money probably as some of the college degree people do, you know?

[423] And, you know, because we get interns that come in over there and they wouldn't know anything.

[424] But they have a lot of years of college, but so that's where they, I guess they knew more than me, but not really, when it comes to running the parts.

[425] The Rexnerd factory was originally slated to close in April, but that was delayed until September because the new plants were taking longer than expected to get up to speed.

[426] Shannon's daughter, Nicole, just started as a freshman at Purdue University, where she's planning to study nursing.

[427] She was awarded more than $30 ,000 in scholarships to cover her tuition.

[428] I'm going to knit this out.

[429] Okay.

[430] See, this is Carmella's area here.

[431] You get this all where she can get on the floor and play.

[432] A couple of weeks ago, Farah Stockman went back to Indianapolis to visit Shannon in her home.

[433] Yeah, I want to say hi.

[434] But you've got to show us your cards.

[435] She told Farah that she received several messages and cards after her story came.

[436] out in the times.

[437] At first it was very overwhelming.

[438] Very overwhelming.

[439] I didn't, I didn't know or expect any of that kind of reaction from anybody.

[440] What was the reaction like?

[441] People telling me, you know, that they were inspired by my courage and how I held myself together throughout everything.

[442] And I inspired him and I was like, wow, really?

[443] And then one day, an even bigger surprise.

[444] Shannon got a Facebook message from Todayo, the Mexican worker she had trained.

[445] Oh, yeah.

[446] Yeah, we're friends on Facebook.

[447] Would you like for me to read what he said to you?

[448] Or said to me, I mean?

[449] Okay, let me see.

[450] It said, I found you.

[451] It took me a long time to find you because I did not remember your last name until I saw the New York Times article.

[452] Thank you very much for everything.

[453] I am grateful to life for have known you.

[454] Sorry for my English.

[455] You know I need to practice more because we'd always joke around about that.

[456] And then you and your family are welcome in Mexico, Monterey.

[457] My house is your house.

[458] If someday you travel to Mexico, you know that you have a friend.

[459] I am really grateful and I'm sorry.

[460] I'm really sorry for everything that happened to Rexnor.

[461] And anything I can help with, you know that you have me. I am proud to be a part of that story.

[462] I want to congratulate you on your daughter's great achievement.

[463] I am proud of you, and thank you very much for teaching me so much.

[464] Did you respond?

[465] Yes, of course, I could.

[466] Thank you.

[467] I said that means a lot.

[468] In the future, if you come to the U .S., you always have a friend here, me. What about strangers who wrote to you?

[469] Here we go.

[470] Hold on.

[471] Okay.

[472] It says, you're probably wondering who I am.

[473] I heard your interview on a podcast.

[474] I faithfully listen to the Daily with Michael Barbaro.

[475] And I just want to wish you the best and let you know that your story was heard and my heart goes out to you and your family and your dogs.

[476] L .O .L. I love that.

[477] It's a shame you don't live near me because there's tons of work out here.

[478] Lots and lots of jobs in manufacturing and warehouse.

[479] I just got laid off from Coca -Cola myself, but I have been another job $17 an hour within a week.

[480] if there's anything I can do to help, let me know.

[481] I don't have a lot, but I'd love to put together a care package together for you if you need it.

[482] I am sure you've probably already had an outporn of support, but if there's anything I can do, let me know.

[483] Well, let me ask you this.

[484] Does it change the way you think of the country that you've gotten so many people are responding?

[485] Yes, because I didn't think that anybody would care.

[486] You know what I mean?

[487] I didn't expect all that.

[488] I really didn't But I'm glad that it did Since she lost her job Shannon has spent time repairing her house And caring for Carmela She still doesn't have a job And she's still looking The Daily is produced by Theo Belcom Lindsay Garrison Rachel Quester Annie Brown Andy Mills Christopher Worth Ike Street's Conradja Claire Tennis Getter and Paige Cowan, with editing help from Larissa Anderson.

[489] Lisa Tobin is our executive producer.

[490] Samantha Hennig is our editorial director.

[491] Our technical manager is Brad Fisher, and our sound engineer is Peter Sale.

[492] Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

[493] Special thanks to Sam Dolnick and Michaela Bouchard and reporters Monica Davy, Sabrina Tavernisi, and Faris Stockman.

[494] That's it for the Daily.

[495] I'm Michael Barbaro.

[496] Thank you for a great first year of this show.

[497] And happy New Year.

[498] We'll see you on Tuesday after the holiday.