Closing Nummi

As I read about the Toyota decision to close the Nummi plant in Fremont, CA, I get really pissed off. This is the only unionized Toyota plant in the whole USA. Before GM went bankrupt the plant was a joint venture between GM and Toyota. They manufactured the Corrolla and the small pick up truck. GM pulled out and Toyota US chief of operations, Yoshi Inabi, decided to close the Fremont operation. He said it was too expensive to operate, so 4,500 employees will lose their jobs by March of 2010.

Like the rest of the automotive industry, Toyota sales have been down for the last couple of years. All of their new plants built in the US are in the south and are, of course, non-union. They even have a new modern plant built in Mississippi that hasn’t even gone into production. They would probably like to move the Fremont operation from California to Mississippi. You wonder why? In Mississippi they don’t pay taxes, the state trains their workers, and it’s a “right to work state.” That makes it extremely difficult to unionize. In a word, Toyota is pretty free to do as they please down there in old Miss.

California is a different story. First of all the UAW in Fremont has made continuous concessions to the company on wages and working conditions. The UAW is trying its darndest to meet all the Toyota requirements for a free hand in running the plant. Toyota seems not to care a hoot about what the loss of 4,500 jobs will mean to the employees and the whole area around Fremont that supports the car plant. There are probably an equal number of people outside the plant who will also be affected.

Now here comes the real shocker in this story of indifference to where the company is operating. During the recent Cash for Clunker’s program, guess which auto company was the biggest beneficiary? You guessed it, none other than Toyota. The US taxpayer gave them a huge finacial boost You would think that might give them pause as they dump 4,500 employees into the street. Toyota doesn’t seem to understand that this is a humanitarian decision as much as an economic one.

Having said all that, I now have to turn my attention to the UAW and the Labor Movement in terms of how it will respond to the Toyota decision. The precipitous decline of the American Labor Movement, that has been going on ever since the passage of the Taft Hartley law in the late forties has been its inability to respond at critical moments of change; for example, Ronald Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers and the labor movement did nothing. So far, in the Nummi case the UAW leadership is making indignant speeches. That will not mean diddly-squat without some serious action.

Well in my 92nd year, I remember a conversation with the late John L. Lewis, the brilliant head of the Mine Workers Union. A bunch of us young wannabe union organizers were being asked to go South in a drive to organize the Textile industry. Lewis said, “When you are in a life and death fight with the employers and all seems hopeless, it’s time to create a crisis.” That’s what we did in Stanford, Ct. in 1948 after a losing battle with the Yale and Town Lock company. We created a one day General Strike. Man, did that work. The governor stepped in and an arbitrator was appointed. We didn’t win, but neither did we lose. It’s a lesson for the UAW.

Some advice from the poet Dylan Thomas might be appropriate, “Do not go quietly into the night.” Maybe take a few hundred of those Fremont members over to Torrance, the Toyota Corporate headquarters, and have a sit-in until you can have a meeting with Mr. Inabi. See if you can’t change his mind. If you can’t, then stay there and recruit your esteemed Governor to come and join you. This is just one amongst many possibilities. But for God sake, put up a fight in the best militant tradition of the the American Labor Movement. I hope it’s not too late. Go get ‘em UAW.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.