NYT: Decision to Close Plant Casts Toyota in Unfamiliar Role

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/business/29auto.html

By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: August 28, 2009

DETROIT — After years of watching rivals shutter factories and lay off workers while it prospered, Toyota now finds itself in unfamiliar territory as it prepares to close its only unionized American plant.


Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

Workers picketed last week near the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, or Nummi, plant in Fremont, Calif.


Suddenly, a company whose success is one reason the Detroit automakers have had to cut so many jobs is itself cutting loose members of the United Automobile Workers union.

California officials say as many as 40,000 jobs could be lost after Toyota closes the plant in Fremont, Calif., where it builds the popular Corolla sedan and a small pickup, the Tacoma. And the U.A.W., which accused Toyota of callously abandoning its workers, criticized it for shifting Corolla production to Canada and Japan after millions of dollars in cash-for-clunkers rebates from the United States government caused sales of that car to surge.

“It has all the ingredients of a real mess,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Atsushi Niimi, a Toyota executive vice president whose responsibilities include North America, denied that Toyota had decided to close the plant because its work force was unionized. He said California’s high cost of living and labor were a factor, as was its location far from Toyota’s suppliers.

Unlike U.A.W. members at other auto plants, the workers at the Fremont plant have no contract provision that gives them extra benefits after being laid off. Nor can they transfer to another plant, as many senior workers do when a General Motors or Ford Motor Company operation shuts down.

FULL story at link.

I have friends that work there, some are couples - they are so fucked. It's really going to be a huge blow to the Bay Area's already shitty economy and these poor people really have no-where else to go.

:shrug: