Toyota NUMMI Closure Would Kill Jobs, Destroy Communities

(This is an excerpted cross-post from the California Labor Federation.)

By Rebecca Greenberg

For more than 25 years, thousands of workers in northern California have committed their lives to producing high-quality Toyotas at the Bay Area’s New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) auto plant. Hundreds of thousands of car-buying Californians have made Toyota the No. 1 car company in the state. So when Toyota announced last year it plans to close the NUMMI plant April 1, the company dealt an undeserved punch in the gut to California’s workers and consumers, not to mention our state’s already faltering economy.

Toyota’s plan to close down NUMMI follows the recalls of millions of Toyota vehicles worldwide and is the latest in a string of remarkably poor management decisions from the Japanese automaker. As it struggles to regain consumer confidence, Toyota has nothing to gain by closing the plant—and Toyota and California have just about everything to lose.

Closing the NUMMI plant is bad for:

California workers and their families. If Toyota has its way, more than 5,000 auto workers at the plant will be out of work, and another 1,500 Teamsters who transport the cars from the NUMMI plant to the dealerships will also be jobless. Additionally, as many as 50,000 workers at hundreds of businesses in California are completely dependant on NUMMI to stay afloat, from the suppliers that manufacture car parts to the restaurants where the NUMMI workers go for lunch and even the shoe stores where the plant workers buy their specialized work boots.

Mari Alvarez, a mother of three, has worked at NUMMI for nine years, and her husband worked there, too, before he got injured. Mari said that if the plant closes, “We just don’t know what we’re going to do. It’s not just an economic disaster, it’s a human tragedy.”

The economy. There’s no doubt that the closure and subsequent layoffs would be devastating to our already faltering economy. California has lost a million jobs since the beginning of the recession. The proposed NUMMI closure would be the largest mass layoff in California since the recession began. 

Earlier this week, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer introduced a new Blue Ribbon commission, to investigate just how dire the effects of the closure will be across California’s economy.

The commission will complete its investigation by next Wednesday, and a delegation will travel to Japan shortly thereafter to present the commission’s findings to the Toyota executives.

The environment. Even though Californians buy more Toyotas than anywhere else, Toyota would rather increase their carbon footprint by shipping hundreds of thousands of cars to California from overseas, when they could be making them right here where they sell them.

In fact, if Toyota stuck by their promise to begin manufacturing the Prius (one of the most popular cars in northern California) and other hybrid vehicles at the NUMMI plant, instead of importing them, it would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it would more than make up for the work lost when GM went bankrupt and was forced to discontinue manufacturing the Pontiac Vive.

Taxpayers. Toyota has the taxpayers to thank for dropping millions into the “cash for clunkers” program, which benefited Toyota far more than any other car company. Toyota also received a variety of taxpayer-funded incentives and subsidies for training programs. And if the plant does close, the taxpayers will wind up footing the bill for the shutdown costs.

Toyota might think the NUMMI closure is a done deal, but we don’t. That’s why we’re supporting the UAW along with the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and dozens of other unions, environmentalists and community allies on a massive campaign at Toyota dealerships across the country to urge Toyota to make a U-turn and keep the NUMMI plant open.

Toyota’s plan to close the NUMMI auto plant in Fremont is an outright attack on union workers. And if they won’t employ our workers, then we won’t buy their cars. Sign the pledge today and vow not to buy any more Toyotas if the company shuts down the NUMMI plant.

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