(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.
