AutoBlog: REPORT: NUMMI workers demonstrate over plant's potential closing

[NewsFeeder]

Filed under: GM, Toyota, UAW/Unions

Toyota has never closed a U.S. assembly plant, but the suddenly struggling Japanese automaker has said that it would shudder the NUMMI factory in California, the only auto plant in the state, by next March. The upcoming closure isn't a big surprise since General Motors was allowed to bow out of its half of the joint venture project with Toyota during bankruptcy, giving Toyota full responsibility for the California plant. And since the Pontiac Vibe is no longer being made at the facility, capacity has dropped to a reported 60%, making the facility unprofitable at a time when Toyota is losing money.

The closure of the plant means, of course, that its 5,300 employees will soon be without a job. To protest the closure of NUMMI, an estimated 1,000 workers turned out to demonstrate in front of the facility last week. The union-organized workers are in a tough position, too, since their UAW contract expired last week. The contract was indefinitely extended, but either party can cancel it with five days notice. And with unemployment at 11% in California, finding a new job will be no easy task.

[source: The Detroit Bureau | Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty]

REPORT: NUMMI workers demonstrate over plant's potential closing originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[PurdueGuy]

If the state of Cali wouldn't make it so expensive to operate there, maybe the plant would stay. As is, I see now way that's going to happen.

[regfootball]

if CA sells half the cars in this country, you'd think they should produce half those cars in the state, too.

[PurdueGuy]

if CA sells half the cars in this country, you'd think they should produce half those cars in the state, too.

Perhaps since most of the cars in this country are sold in this country, then maybe our country should produce most of the cars in this country too. It's nice as a simplified sentimental statement, but completely ignores how business works.

[haypops]

If the state of Cali wouldn't make it so expensive to operate there, maybe the plant would stay. As is, I see now way that's going to happen.

Probably not the cost of doing in business in California that is the problem since Tesla just announced plans for new factories in both Southern and Northern California. I suspect that Freemont is older than most of GM or Toyota's factories.