Ca. and UAW done priced themselves out of jobs.

"GM's decision to leave NUMMI, which wasn't eligible for bailout money, made the plant any easy candidate for a shutdown, since Toyota's plants in Kentucky, Indiana, Texas and Alabama are all newer and nonunion."

Auto Plant in California Shut by Toyota
By Joseph R. Szczesny Friday, Aug. 28, 2009

Justin Sullivan / Getty

Toyota has announced plans to close the last auto plant on the West Coast next March, prompting angry objections from the United Auto Workers, community groups and politicians throughout the state of California. The shutdown of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, Calif., across the bay from San Francisco, marks the first time the Japanese automaker has deviated from its policy of maintaining employment.

But it wasn't fully a Toyota decision: Toyota's partner in the plant, General Motors, elected to pull out last June, leaving the plant unprofitable, Toyota says. "After the decision by General Motors to withdraw from the NUMMI joint venture, Toyota conducted a thorough review of its alternatives in light of current and anticipated market conditions," says TMC executive vice president Atsushi Niimi. "Based on this review, we have determined that over the mid-to-long term, it just would not be economically viable to continue the production contract with NUMMI."

GM had been under pressure from the government's auto task force to cut brands, and Pontiac, one of the brands sacrificed as GM restructured, was a big customer of the NUMMI facility. Toyota pleaded with GM to stay in the venture and offered to build other vehicles at the plant for GM, but to no avail.

Location was also probably a factor in Toyota's decision. It's very expensive to operate a plant in California, notes a senior executive with another Japanese automaker. Toyota can pretty easily shift production of the compact Corollas and Tacoma pickup trucks to other plants in Canada and Texas.

Toyota's longstanding commitment to stable employment is being challenged by heavy losses the company has sustained over the past 15 months. It lost $7 billion during its last fiscal year, and more red ink is flowing this year. And the recession and the drop in auto sales in the U.S. saddled Toyota with excess capacity in the U.S., leaving it little choice but to cut production, says David Cole of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Further, GM's decision to leave NUMMI, which wasn't eligible for bailout money, made the plant any easy candidate for a shutdown, since Toyota's plants in Kentucky, Indiana, Texas and Alabama are all newer and nonunion, Cole says. United Auto Workers officials organized a large protest outside the NUMMI plant last week.

The impending closure of the NUMMI plant is a major blow to California's shaky economy. The plant employs more than 5,000 and indirectly supports another 30,000 jobs in the California economy — not only in the Bay Area but also in Southern California, where several of NUMMI's key suppliers are based. Those threats are not lost on California's community groups: shutting NUMMI will lead to substantial losses in local and state revenues and employment taxes, could increase property foreclosures and could significantly increase unemployment claims, a recently organized group called Friends of NUMMI warns.

Boy, all those mexicans out of work, aint that a shame. And the audacity of the uaw, a financially failing union, spending money protesting the closure of a non-union auto factory they have nothing to do with, and i thought a.i.g. was bad. Guess theyre will be a few more U.A.W. employees without a pention to support a protest that has nothing to do with them. Oh well.

Auto workers have had it good for a long time. Times have changed cheap replacable labor is king. Don't blame the unions though. Blam our goverment, for making out sourcing labor cost effective and not enforcing immigration laws. No wonder the houseing market crashed, there aren't jobs that pay well anymore. How do you expect people to afford homes when a job that used to pay $20.00 an hour now pays $7.00.

Careful now.
By suggesting Gov. enforce Immigration Law and deny the Illegals their right to steal our jobs won't win you any popularity contests and might put you on the Homegrown Terrorist list.

Another point.
A few months ago, I sent an email to BHO suggesting they abolish Min. Wage. It's obsolete and with all the folks competing for the few jobs there are, they could submit a bid on how much they'd be willing to work for.
I wonder if they have taken it into advisement?

I have no ill feeling towards Illegals, they want the same things we all do. They want that little house, with that with fence out frount. I have ill feelings towards people gettting taken advantage of by goverment and corprations. The owners of those companys are paying low wages on illegal labor, hurting not only you and me, but the immgrants as well. The goverment over looks these laws so there corprate buddies can make a fat bonus by reduceing cost for the company, which in turns makes big campain donations to goverment.

They don't hire illegals so what is your point here?

Immigration laws play very little part in this recession. Recession sucks. Business's close. Jobs are lost. Wages go down. It still has very little if anything to do with the immigration laws.

Show me where up to 20 Million Illegals in the US doesn't have a negative effect on our economy.

I agree, All theses little problems add up to our current ression. Like the song says, "all and all they were just bricks in the wall".

I wonder if this will finally start to sink in with our politicians... we spend ourselves into a massive deficit and how do we "right" it? Tax the hell out of the wealthy and businesses of course! I'm tired of paying more for less. Both the UAW and the state are to blame for this. you can't tax businesses into oblivion and expect them to just stand there and take it.

how peaceful of you . to just roll over and let them slowly take your home and life style from you . And yet you only blame the rich pigs for it . not the invaders , there such nice people I guess I, ll agree with you and let them stay ... That is if they well agree to only take your job and income ... Hoy good idea amigo ..
Dam if the founding fathers had thought this way we would really have a way out country . just love and peace all over ..get real if it isn't worth fighting for your going to lose it . Your talking about invaders . Check out what they would do to you if you had to go there to get a job .. 2 years minimum hard time in a state prison in Mexico . But they are such nice people they do keep the kids in good supply of drugs . I heard they mule the stuff here to pay for the cost of the trip . O Yea the plants in ca are at least 90% mexican workers ..

Besides there daughters are hot!

Like it or not there here to stay. You can accept that, or be a bitter old man about it. No offical or government is ever going to send all of them home.

Fortunately, not all of us are willing to just roll over and let them steal our country. Many are fighting daily to pressure Gov. to take action against the Corps and Business breaking the Law.

This recession may have added benifits also. The more jobs BHO throws away and allows outsourced, the more desperate unemployed Americans will become. The louder our voices will be.

37 million jobs taken by people who have no right to work here . 37 million jobs that we need ,we who have a right to work here ..
they walked here they can walk home . not my problem . when there no work for them they well go home .. maybe we can get a few americans to go with they ..

Your right they have no right to be here.No I don't like the Idea of ammanisty, but no one has the guts to make them leave. So you can be all angry about it or do the best you can. Vote for candates that share your views, I know about the job market. I'm one of the lucky ones doing the work of three people for a 8 hour paycheck. Just happy to have a job right now. Would things be better without them, that I can not say.