Protests Mount Over Plans To Close Calif. Toyota Plant

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

TOYOTA:  ANTI-UNION / ANTI-CONSUMER

UCS News Service reports:

Toyota’s decision to close its huge New United Motors Mfg. Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Freemont, Calif. April 1 was being met by an increasing storm of protest as the day approached. The closing would take the jobs of 5,400 workers at the plant and those of some 35,000 to 50,000 parts and other workers whose livelihoods depend on facility.

United Auto Workers and Teamsters members - who haul new vehicles to dealers - protested outside the Embassy of Japan in late Janunary. A mid-February demonstration outside the plant kicked off a nationwide campaign to save it.

The plant had been in a joint venture with General Motors since 1984. When GM decided to drop its Pontiac line, Toyota said it would close the plant even though, according to the union, only 10 percent of NUMMI’s capacity was used for the Pontiac brand. The popular Toyota Corolla sedan and Tacoma truck are the plant’s mainstays.

The NUMMI facility is the last remaining auto manufacturing plant in California. Toyota plans to move production to Canada and Japan. Speaking at the January rally, UAW Vice President Bob King called on Toyota to not abandon “the principles that made them successful globally.” He said that when the company began its U.S. operations it was known for loyalty to its workers and lifetime employment for its workers in Japan.

“It is a betrayal of workers to try to take the jobs away from them. To shut down 50,000 jobs is a betrayal of the consumers who have been most loyal to Toyota,” King said.

NUMMI has claimed in the past to pump more than $500 million in wages and benefits into the California economy annually.
University of California Professor Harley Shaiken., who specializes in labor and the global economy, says the decision to close the plant could add more than $2 billion to the U.S. trade deficit.