Kentucky environmental attorney Sanders says Whirlpool took $19 Million in TARP funds and closed the doors to 1,100 workers in Evansville.

American deserves better than this from corporations taking TARP handouts from U.S. Taxpayers.

The Whirlpool Corp. is closing a refrigerator manufacturing plant in Evansville, Ind., putting more than 1,100 people out of work.  Whirlpool will continue to produce these refrigerators, but not in Evansville and not anywhere else in the United States.  Instead, Whirlpool will manufacture them in Mexico, where weaker labor and environmental laws make them “cheaper” for Whirlpool to produce.

Whirlpool said that production of top freezer refrigerators made at Evansville will be transferred to one of the company’s existing manufacturing facilities in Mexico. Production of icemakers produced at the Evansville plant will be relocated to an as yet undetermined company-owned site.

Whirlpool is evaluating options for the best location for the Refrigeration Product Development Center, which is co-located with the Evansville manufacturing facility and has approximately 300 employees.  A decision will come at a later date.

Whirlpool recently took $19 received from the federal government as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Those $19 million dollars of tax payer dollars are U.S. economic recovery funds, not Mexico’s. 

Whirlpool’s conduct in this matter is simply WRONG!  As an American consumer, I am voicing my displeasure at the corporation in this manner:  Whirlpool is the world’s largest home appliance manufacturer, but you never find this brand in my home or office from this date forward.