Toyota Closes Only UAW Plant

Looks like the GM bailout and subsequent business changes have cost the UAW about 40,000 California jobs:

Toyota's decision to close its 25-year-old California factory where UAW workers build Corolla cars and Tacoma pickups has delivered a seismic, Detroit-like jolt to the once-invincible Silicon Valley economy.

The Japanese automaker's first plant closing in North America will add to California's swelling unemployment rolls, and perhaps, help the Golden State better empathize with the industry that it has persistently challenged with regulatory requirements.

The closure also will eliminate Toyota's only UAW-represented workforce.

California has now lost 580,000 manufacturing jobs -- a quarter of its total -- since 2001. NUMMI's closure next March could erase about 40,000 more.

"People are starting to pay attention," said Gino DiCaro, spokesman for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.

Toyota's decision followed GM's withdrawal from the partnership, which eliminated about 20% of NUMMI's production.

That left Toyota with more factories than it needed.

In today's market and tax and regulatory environment there's no reason for Toyota to continue employing UAW workers or maintain operations in a state like California which now goes out of its way to punish success.