NUMMI Plant Closure Ends Toyota-GM Venture : NPR

1 de 3

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=125430405

< NUMMI Plant Closure Ends Toyota-GM

Venture
APRIL 01, 2010 12:00 AM ET

Copyright 2010 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission
required.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:

And now across the country to California, where the last remaining auto plant on the
West Coast is shutting down today. It was a unique operation run jointly by Toyota
and General Motors, until GM went broke and pulled out. Now Toyota's pulling the
plug on New United Motor Manufacturing, better known by its nickname, NUMMI.
NPR's Richard Gonzales says nearly 5,000 workers in the Fremont, California plant
are about to be jobless.
RICHARD GONZALES: The end of NUMMI really started late last week. That's when
the company released about a thousand workers who built Tacoma trucks. Some
gathered in a local restaurant just an hour or so after they had filed out of the plant
for the last time. They included 17-year veteran Curt Sanders.
Mr. CURT SANDERS (Former Employee, NUMMI): My daughter texted me earlier
this morning. I lost it. That just kind of set it off. You know, I was good until then, and
then as soon as my daughter texted me, you know, everything's going to be fine. We'll
be okay, and this and that, I just - that's when the river started.
GONZALES: There were hugs, tears and more than a few beers as workers traded
phone numbers and email addresses.
Lisa Wilmer spent almost 18 years on the assembly line.
Ms. LISA WILMER (Former Assembly Line Worker, NUMMI): Well, there's some
people that you'll stay in touch with. There's some that you don't care to stay in touch

09/02/2015 06:40

NUMMI Plant Closure Ends Toyota-GM Venture : NPR

2 de 3

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=125430405

with. The hardest part is the ones that you really like and you know that you're never
going to see again. That's the part that's really hard to deal with.
GONZALES: Many of the workers still wonder why Toyota is closing NUMMI. It
opened in 1984 as an experiment to see whether unionized American workers could
adapt to Japanese management practices. They did. But more than two decades of
building high-quality cars wasn't enough to convince Toyota to keep the plant open
after GM pulled out.
Toyota officials say NUMMI simply wasn't economically viable, but many workers
suspect that it may have something to do with their union. This was Toyota's only
unionized workforce. Ann Ezra worked for NUMMI for more than two decades.
Ms. ANN EZRA (Former Employee, NUMMI): Toyota has never shut a plant down in
73 years, and we were the only plant to get a zero-defect audit, ever, in the Toyota
history. Only another Lexus plant has ever done it, and they're going to shut us
down? Why? So yeah, it's because of the unions.
GONZALES: Ezra stopped short of saying more. Workers have agreed not to
denigrate the company in exchange for a severance package, averaging about
$50,000, depending on years of service. Forty-seven hundred workers will lose their
jobs, and U.C. Berkeley labor expert Harley Shaiken says the NUMMI closure will
have a spillover effect on scores of other businesses.
Professor HARLEY SHAIKEN (Labor Expert, University of California-Berkeley): The
20,000 workers who will be impacted by the NUMMI closure work in direct
suppliers, some of which who will be totally closed. They also are related workers, the
people in the restaurants down the street, the schoolteachers and nurses in hospitals
and schools where NUMMI workers live. The impact of this is going to be felt deeply.
GONZALES: Some local leaders hope to recruit another carmaker to Fremont, but
Mayor Bob Wasserman says he foresees housing and retail development, perhaps
even a ballpark, on the 380-acre site.
Mayor BOB WASSERMAN (Fremont, California): If Toyota's the biggest and best
automaker in the world, if they can't make a profit there, who in the world can? So its
future as being as it was in the past is not likely.

09/02/2015 06:40

NUMMI Plant Closure Ends Toyota-GM Venture : NPR

3 de 3

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=125430405

GONZALES: NUMMI worker Johnny Rowe has a piece of the past he'll hang onto.
Back at the restaurant saying his goodbyes, Rowe stands next to a late model Tacoma
truck.
Mr. JOHNNY ROWE: Oh, man, the truck I drive, I actually saw it get built. So there's
some pride in what we drive. There really is. When I leave the plant, I'm actually
sitting in - I'm still sitting in the plant. You know, driving every day, I'm kind of
bringing a piece of NUMMI with me.
GONZALES: The last NUMMI-made Toyota Tacoma truck rolled out last Friday.
Today, the last Toyota Corolla will leave the plant, and the workers who made it will
file out to a final round of farewells.
Richard Gonzales, NPR News, Fremont, California.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
Copyright 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media
without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of
Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text
may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of
NPR's programming is the audio.

2015 npr

SHARE

09/02/2015 06:40