Wild Ass Rumor of the Day: NUMMI Dead by March
KTVU.com reports that an unspecified Japanese newspaper reports that Toyota has decided to shut down its Fremont, California, plant as of next March. New GM has already announced its decision to pull the plug on its share of the plant’s production, which last consisted of the Pontiac Vibe version of the Toyota Matrix. Speaking off the record, a U.S. Toyota spokesman told TTAC the writing’s been on the wall for some time. “ NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing) was only profitable for a single year.” If this story pans out, production of the Tacoma pickup and Corolla sedan will move to ToMoCo’s mothballed—but brand spanking new—Mississippi factory. Which is, unlike NUMMI, a non-union shop. [Thanks to jmhm2003 for the link.]
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Tacoma and Corolla to move to Mississippi? Where did you get that from? I don't think so. More likely they will unbolt and move the Tacoma line to Texas and they will expand Baja California. As for Corolla, I think they will increase the production in Canada. Between Woodstock and Cambridge, Toyota could build about 340k Corolla/Matrix- and that's without any overtime.
Does this mean Toyota will now have a Jobs Bank? Or will the UAW workers just get laid off and that's it?
Hmmm.... it is right up the road from San Jose. I wonder if Tesla could eventually move in?
I wonder if that's why Toyota was considering applying for a DOE loan to modify for production of Prius, as all of the (most) parts would come from Japan on that one and would make a great deal of sense. At the same time, it would make sense that Toyota would not want to take on the obligation of an older UAW workforce and the pension/health care liabilities as they would be included. Does anyone know how the UAW workers were affected by the VEBA trusts (i.e., were they GM employees outsourced to NUMMI or were they NUMMI employees)? Is there the possibility of closing NUMMI and then Toyota buying the plant from the joint venture and hiring a new work force (there are probably still alot of under-employeed defense/areospace workers, who would be willing to take a job with Toyota w/o the UAW, heck I have to imagine that when it comes down to it, the current workers would ditch the UAW to keep thier jobs, I mean industry isn't really booming in california(or anywhere else) right now)