California Workers Crushed by Toyota by Bob Herbert

[Better Believe It]

Workers Crushed by Toyota
By Bob Herbert
March 15, 2010

California has been very, very good to Toyota. It is one of the largest markets in the world for the popular Prius hybrid. Nearly 18 percent of all Toyotas sold in the U.S. are sold in California. The state has showered the company with benefits, including large-scale infrastructure improvements for its operations and millions of dollars for worker training. California is one of the key reasons that Toyota is the wealthiest carmaker on the planet.

Toyota is paying the state back with the foulest form of ingratitude.

The company is planning to shut down the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that makes Corollas and the Tacoma compact pickup. The plant closure will throw 4,700 experienced, highly skilled and dedicated employees onto the street during the worst job market since the Depression, and it will jeopardize nearly 20,000 other jobs around the state.

It is a cold and irresponsible act on Toyota’s part, a decision that was not necessary from a business standpoint and that completely disregards the wave of human misery it is setting in motion.

What we’re dealing with here is the kind of corporate treachery toward workers and their local communities that has ruined countless lives over the past several decades and completely undermined the long-term prospects of the economy.

The NUMMI plant is a heck of a lot more viable than the nonstop dissembling of top Toyota executives. The company could keep the plant open and profitable if it wanted to. But, instead, it has decided to shift the production of these vehicles to Japan, Canada, Mexico and Texas.

Beyond sales, Toyota has reaped endless benefits not just from California, but from the U.S. government and other states as well.

The federal cash-for-clunkers program, for example, was a bonanza for Toyota. As Professor Shaiken’s report put it: “The automaker ranked first in ‘Cash for Clunkers’ sales in summer 2009, a stimulus effort that allocated $3 billion in incentives to trade in older models for newer, more fuel-efficient ones. The Corolla proved the most popular model.”

Among the infrastructure investments made by California on behalf of the NUMMI plant was the dredging of the Port of Oakland 12 years ago at a cost of $410 million. That was done to accommodate the types of cargo ships required by the plant.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/opinion/16herbert.html

[Tempest]

1. Toyota and Walmart

The welfare queens of America.

Some cities are demanding companies pay back the tax breaks and other incentives they are given after they violate agreements made with the city.

[Greyhound]

12. Now be fair, The list of corporate welfare queens is published every year.

[Tempest]

15. LOL!

Good one.

:fistbump:

[Greyhound]

13. Now be fair, The list of corporate welfare queens is published every year.

[Gman2]

2. Use the copacker strategy, or face protectionist actions. Simple really.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. wow...thanks for posting this

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. "Yes, my Lord."

Anyone getting it?

[Romulox]

5. Toyota knows that the same consumers who don't care about workers in Detroit don't care about NUMMI.

It turns out one-way "solidarity" tends to be self-limiting.

[jody]

9. Particularly unemployed workers in MS who gain from Toyota jobs lost in CA. n/t

[demosincebirth]

6. All I can say is , keep buying those Toyotas!

[jody]

7. Taxpayers will pay about $125 million for Toyota's retirement debt through PBGC. n/t

[Gaedel]

8. Where is GM?

NUMMI was a joint venture between Toyota and GM. They made cars for both companies. When did GM bail out of the plant?

[Better Believe It]

10. That's fully explained in the article

[AdHocSolver]

11. Toyota is only doing what many American corporations have done for decades...

...including GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Local and state governments have competed for years against other cities and states for manufacturing plants and corporate office buildings to relocate to their areas by giving tax breaks and taxpayer subsidies to corporations amounting to billions of dollars.

These often turned out to be nothing more than giveaway bonanzas to the corporations as the number of jobs created didn't bring enough revenue to the area to even pay for the cost to the taxpayers for the giveaways. Many of these American corporations left the area for more taxpayer giveaways elsewhere as soon as they realized a major part of the bonanza.

Reading the same sad story again and again makes one wonder if it was local politician incompetence or some more sinister reason the local taxpayers were sold out again and again.

At any rate, it is probably not far-fetched to assert that all these taxpayer giveaways to the corporations helped pay for the building of factories in China, Mexico, and many other foreign countries.

So why should Toyota be judged any harsher. They have plenty of American role models.

[PBS Poll-435]

14. I don't get the point of Mr. Herbert's Op/Ed

Is Toyota punishing California and its workers?
If so, for what infraction?

While the production mix has been very lopsided lately, especially considering the dramatic bankruptcy filing of General Motors, what percentage, regardless of final assembly mix, of plant costs were paid by GM and by Toyota?

If Toyota can produce vehicles in the US for sale in the US, why must it build them in California? If it makes economic sense to build a new plant elsewhere and receive tax abatements/credits why must Toyota make a choice between bad PR and economic viability?