Twenty-five thousand jobs and $2.3 billion dollars. That’s what California stands to lose if Toyota follows through with its plan to shut down the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), plant in Fremont at the end of the month, according to a study released today by a Blue Ribbon Commission. The Commission, appointed by State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, was tasked with assessing the economic, social, and environmental costs of Toyota’s planned closure of the state’s only auto assembly plant.

UC Berkeley Professor Harley Shaiken, chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission:

NUMMI is in the heart of Toyota’s most important U.S. market, NUMMI has Toyota’s most skilled and experienced workforce in the country – one that has consistently won industry acclaim for quality – and California is at the cutting edge of both technological innovation and the green future the company wants to lead. NUMMI and its highly experienced and skilled workers should be valued by Toyota as a key asset for the company as it struggles to reestablish its reputation for quality and green innovation.

The Commission’s report validates what we already know — there are no good reasons for closing NUMMI and many good ones for keeping it open.  

The report found:

§ Even during the recent downturn in auto sales, Toyota’s share of the U.S. market continued to expand. Toyota could easily operate all of its U.S. plants — including NUMMI — at full capacity and still not meet the demands of the U.S. market.

§ NUMMI’s closure would deepen the recession in areas that are already among the hardest hit. Unemployment in the state is 12.4 percent and in Fremont is nearly four points higher.

§ More than 20,000 jobs would be permanently lost according to the University of the Pacific forecast for 2010-2014. Many of these jobs are high quality, well-paying jobs.

§ States and localities will lose nearly a billion dollars of tax revenue needed to fund vital services in the ten years after the plant closes.

§ Workers and their families will suffer not only economically but physically as well, according to new research, which shows that plant closings significantly increase the incidence of heart attacks and strokes by 50-100 percent among older workers like the long-time workforce at NUMMI.

§ Californians buy more Toyotas than anywhere else, and by closing the NUMMI plant, Toyota is drastically increasing the distance that the vehicles must be transported to reach the California dealerships, which will lead to more pollution and result in greater degradation of the environment

If Toyota takes the Commission’s advice and uses NUMMI as the center for developing the eco-friendly California Corolla, it has the potential to lead the auto industry in the development of electric and plug-in technologies. But by leaving California behind, Toyota would also be leaving behind the state that is leading the nation in the development of those green technologies. And by abandoning its workers, the automaker is only drawing even more negative attention to Toyota’s blatant disregard for the well being of those individuals that keep them in business.

As the company seeks to rebuild its commitment to the “Toyota Way,” it needs to seriously reevaluate its recent management decisions. The report concludes

The most immediate, direct, and cost effective jobs program available is to keep NUMMI running. The automaker and California would reap a triple bottom-line benefit: Toyota would restore its image and retain a world-class plant; workers and their families would make it through a dark economic winter; and California would get further down the road to economic growth and a green future.

Rebecca Greenberg is communications organizer at the California Labor Federation Email her at [email protected].

For more than 25 years, thousands of workers in northern California have committed their lives to producing high-quality Toyotas at the Bay Area’s New United Motor Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI) auto plant, and hundreds of thousands of car-buying Californians have made Toyota the #1 car company in the state. So when Toyota announced last year that it plans to close down the NUMMI plant on April 1, 2010, the company dealt an undeserved punch in the gut to California’s workers and consumers, not to mention our state’s already faltering economy.

Toyota’s plan to close down NUMMI is the latest in a string of remarkably poor management decisions from the Japanese automaker, which is still in the hot seat after the recent rash of recalls of millions of Toyota vehicles worldwide. As the company struggles to regain consumer confidence, Toyota has absolutely nothing to gain by closing the plant, and both Toyota and California have just about everything to lose.

Closing the NUMMI plant is bad for:

California workers and their families. If Toyota has its way, more than 5,000 autoworkers at the plant will be out of work, and another 1,500 Teamsters who transport the cars from the NUMMI plant to the dealerships will also be jobless. Additionally, as many as 50,000 workers at hundreds of businesses in California are completely dependant on NUMMI to stay afloat, from the suppliers that manufacture car parts to the restaurants where the NUMMI workers go for lunch and even the shoe stores where the plant workers buy their specialized work boots.

Mari Alvarez, a mother of three, has worked at NUMMI for 9 years, and her husband worked there too, before he got injured. Mari said that if the plant closes

We just don’t know what we’re going to do. It’s not just an economic disaster, it’s a human tragedy.

The economy. There’s no doubt that the closure and subsequent layoffs would be devastating to our already faltering economy. California has already lost a million jobs since the beginning of the recession, and the proposed NUMMI closure would be the largest mass layoff in California since the recession began.  

Last week, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer introduced a new Blue Ribbon commission tapped to investigate just how dire the effects of the closure will be across California’s economy.

Lockyer explained:

Californians are deeply concerned about how the loss of this plant might affect their economy, their state and their lives, and it is the job of this Commission to help find the answers to those questions. It is a testament to the quality of leaders on this panel that they have been more than willing to take up this challenge

.

The commission — which includes representatives from labor, business, consumer, environmental, religious and political communities, as well as actor Danny Glover, who is a lifelong civil rights advocate — will be completing their investigation by Wednesday, and a delegation will travel to Japan shortly thereafter to present the commission’s findings to the Toyota executives.

The environment. Even though Californians buy more Toyotas than anywhere else, Toyota would rather increase their carbon footprint by shipping hundreds of thousands of cars to California from overseas, when they could be making them right here where they sell them.

In fact, if Toyota stuck by their promise to begin manufacturing the Prius (one of the most popular cars in northern California) and other hybrid vehicles at the NUMMI plant, instead of importing them, it would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it would more than make up for the work lost when GM went bankrupt and was forced to discontinue manufacturing the Pontiac Vive. Toyota claims GM’s pull out was the primary reason for the decision to close NUMMI. In reality, GM production at NUMMI represented only 10% of 2008 production and less than 20% over the past five years.

Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, wrote in a letter to Toyota President Akio Toyoda:

California’s leadership in clean vehicles will drive up demand for the very best, and Toyota can show its commitment to the consumers in this state by bringing hybrid manufacturing to NUMMI.

Taxpayers. Toyota has the taxpayers to thank for dropping millions into the “cash for clunkers” program, which benefitted Toyota far more than any other car company. Toyota also received a variety of taxpayer-funded incentives and subsidies for training programs. And if the plant does close, the taxpayers will wind up footing the bill for the shutdown costs.

NUMMI is the last remaining auto plant on the West coast, and Toyota’s only unionized auto plant. NUMMI has consistently won top ratings from J.D. Powers for its outstanding commitment to efficiency, productivity and safety.  But if Toyota shutters the plant, tens of thousands of California workers will be left jobless, despite the fact that the company has never closed any of its other plants, nor have they ever laid off a single Japanese worker.

Toyota might think the NUMMI closure is a done deal, but we don’t. That’s why we’re supporting the UAW along with the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and dozens of other unions, environmentalists and community allies on a massive campaign at Toyota dealerships across the country to urge Toyota to make a U-turn and keep the NUMMI plant open.

Toyota’s plan to close the NUMMI auto plant in Fremont is an outright attack on union workers. And if they won’t employ our workers, then we won’t buy their cars. Sign the pledge today at http://bit.ly/4xYAif and vow not to buy any more Toyotas if the company shuts down the NUMMI plant.

Rebecca Greenberg is communications organizer at the California Labor Federation. Follow her on Twitter @CaliforniaLabor.

The BART board apparently decided that a “train” that will require switching of cables halfway through the line, is an excellent use of nearly half a billion dollars.

I would describe my indignant response, but TransForm, a transit advocacy has done it pretty well for me in a press release today:

In a historic vote today, the BART Board voted to approved a huge boondoggle called the Oakland Airport Connector that will likely be the most expensive project per new passenger built in the Bay Area.

Oddly, BART is announcing the creation of a “swift” project. The Connector will travel at an average speed of just over 23 mph. Which is swift for some cyclists, some dogs and the rare Olympic sprinter, but not for a “automated fixed guideway” system, actually a slow cable car.

The project will:

   * Cost $492 million dollars just to add 600 riders (if you believe their outdated ridership projections). General Manager Dugger confirmed that BART is assuming 4,350 riders in 2020, not the 10K that BART has presented recently.  That is just 600 more than they would have had with AirBART service.  Wow, 600 riders for nearly half a billion dollars.

   * Have vehicles stop for 10-20 seconds in the middle of the journey while vehicles switch ropes and restart (not even the cable cars in SF stop to switch cables! Think of the last time you were on a rail vehicle that stopped halfway through the trip for no apparent reason!)  I guess that’s what happens when you take the lowest bidder and they are a ski lift operator.

It was confirmed at the meeting that this very short connector has a projected fare of $6 each way on top of your BART ticket, despite BART’s insistence that this was not necessarily the case.  Transit advocates throughout the region are enjoying BART’s “swift” decision.  (TransForm)

This is a ridiculous waste of money. That money could be spent in any number of more intelligent ways: improving service, expanding service outwards, whatever, you name it. But $492 million for a few miles that is already well served by AirBART?

It’s a joke.

Hey, did you notice that there are a few financial issues facing the state? Even the Department of Transportation and the toll authorities are feeling the pinch.  So, this shouldn’t really surprise anybody:

Bay Area bridge managers today proposed raising car tolls from $4 to $5 on six bridges, charging different tolls at different times on the Bay Bridge, and ending the free ride for carpools on all seven state bridges in the region.

Preparing to introduce the Bay Area motorists to congestion pricing, staff of the Bay Area Toll Authority recommend raising the toll to $6 on the Bay Bridge during weekday rush hours, while leaving the toll at $4 during other weekday hours. On weekends, the Bay Bridge toll would be $5 at all times. (CoCo Times)

It’s good to see that the Bridge Authorities are going to start using congestion pricing, it will go at least part of the way towards reducing some of the traffic nightmares on the bridges. However, I think the bigger news is snuck in there: the end of free rides for carpools.

In the East Bay, the casual carpool system has been an institution for many years.  There’s a whole etiquette of the casual carpool, how to get a ride, how to give a ride, how to behave during the casual carpool.  It’s been a really good way to encourage people out of their cars, but that ends if the carpool free ride ends.

We need to work very, very hard to find ways to reduce the number of cars on the roads and bridges of the Bay Area. So, yes, we need to push people toward BART and the busses, but that alone will not be enough. It is really too bad that the carpool system looks set to end.  

       California needs a knight in shining armor to deliver it from the forces of budget shortfalls, program cuts, and sub-15% legislative approval ratings.

       At first, I thought our hope was Gavin Newsom, but his departure from the Governor’s race leaves a handful of candidates on both sides that seem inherently opposed to doing the one thing that could save this state: raising revenue.

      So, who is going to carry the baton? Where is our saving grace, and when will he/she hurry their butt up and save us from sinking further and further into debt and depression?

     One person who could posthumanly save the State of California is Saul Alinsky. Deemed by many as the “father of community organizing”, Alinsky helped organize the Back of the Yards area of Chicago introduced to the national stage by Sinclair’s “The Jungle”.

      Alinsky passed away in 1972 (in Carmel-By-The-Sea), but his revolutionary tactics for mobilizing the masses have time and time again generated the true catalyst for change: Friction. Given the current economic situation in this state, Lord knows we need something.

       

       According to PPIC, the average income for a family of four in the lowest 10% bracket dropped 24% to just above $11,000 between 1967 and 1994, while the income for a family of four in the top 10% rose 35% to over $110,000. This was the situation in 1994. I don’t have numbers for more recently, but one can only imagine.  

       In times like this, when the gap between rich and poor is widening at an increasingly alarming rate, it is imperative that we create some friction. We are now beyond the point of using words like “if” and “should”. Rather, we need to use democracy to our advantage to get rid of the anti-tax BS that, to use a strong but justified word, oppresses working Californians and limits their access to life, liberty, and slows their pursuit of happiness.

       The goal, then, needs to be to educate Californians that revenue supports the programs that provide and create more diffusible social classes, and hence, that make the California Dream a reality.

       We’re not asking for a miracle, we’re only asking that people who are hurt by program cuts recognize this and mobilize to protect their interests!

This is the struggle that encompasses almost all Californians. The middle class suburban family in the Bay Area relies on K-12 education just as much as the immigrant family from the Imperial Valley does. The elderly couple that lost their eligibility for Medicare is hurt just as badly as the state worker who is furloughed four days a month and on top of that has to pay 32% more to send their kid to a UC, CSU, or Community College. Why are these people given the bill while Chevron pays $0.00/year to drill oil from the earth and Bank of America is able to raise interest rates at their own whim? More importantly, why are Californians letting this happen when it so obviously against their best interests?

       So, what do you think, Saul Alinsky?

       Sacramento has made it apparent that it isn’t going to make any real attempt at reforming itself. That said, we live in a democracy, and if we can make the point that change isn’t an option, it is a necessity, then maybe we’ll see some action from our electeds.

       So, it’s not Saul Alinsky we’re waiting for; we’re waiting for the People of California to wake up and take their state back. I’m ready.

The Bay Area Council, a business coalition from the…um…Bay Area, has announced that they will drop $2 million into the Repair California efforts that they have been pushing for the last few years.  Their efforts to get a constitutional convention may, or may not, result in a ballot measure effort for the November 2010 election.  Maybe.

Repair California, a coalition preparing two Constitutional Convention initiatives for the November 2010 ballot, will receive $2 million from its chief sponsor, the Bay Area Council.

Steven Hill, a coalition member and director of the political reform program at the New America Foundation, made the announcement a few minutes ago at a constitutional reform convention in Sacramento. It represents about half of what the group estimates it will need to run a successful initiative campaign.

Hill also outlined some of of the details of the planned initiatives, which he said will be filed with the state in the next 10 days.

The first initiative authorizes the voters to call a Constitutional Convention, an act restricted under current law to the Legislature. The second measure convenes a convention limited to the review of governance issues. Its recommended reforms would come back to voters in subsequent elections. (CoCo Times)

But the real question is how the delegates are allocated. And as of right now, it appears that they will be allocated at the County Supervisor level.  Every county gets one, and another for each 250K of population, with some provisions made for the 1mil+ cities. If it’s a winner take all thing, where a 3-2 Republican lean appoint all of the delegates, we’re looking at a heavily Republican convention.  Even if there is some proportionate representation in the bigger counties, it’s hard to see how it gets anywhere near the big Democratic advantage we see in the Legislature.

Obviously this is unacceptable. On one level, how could progressives support something with such a big thumb on the scale for conservatives.  On the other, law-side, how does the BAC plan on getting around the legal precedent striking down representation based upon counties.  It violates the one man-one vote principle.

There is still time to change the proposed language, but if this is the plan, I for one will not be supporting it.

I had my bluetooth headphones on as I was at the gym this morning, and I got a text message just before 7am. It’s not really a common occurrence, so I go over and check it out.  And sure enough, it was the alert-sf message announcing that the Bay Bridge had reopened at 7am.  

Cars led by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers began crossing less than two hours after the reopening time that Caltrans originally set when it closed the bridge Thursday evening to remove a section of the eastern span and install a temporary detour. And traffic resumed well ahead of the 5 a.m. Wednesday reopening that Caltrans scheduled Monday, after the crack in the steel link, called an eyebar, had been discovered over the weekend.

“Through the night, the crews have worked nonstop – for almost 70 hours – and were able to complete repair work on the damaged eyebar beam,” Caltrans Director Randy Iwasaki said at a hastily called news conference on Yerba Buena Island at 6:10 a.m. “The bridge has been inspected, and it’s safer than it was when we closed it.” (SF Gate 9/8/09)

Sometimes you just luck into something, and that appears to be the case here. Had this inspection taken place some other time, the Bridge would have had to be shut down immediately to be repaired.  The crews were able to make the fix while the detour was being installed, so really, we only lost a few additional hours.

However, given that CalTrans had stated that the Bridge was going to be closed all day, BART is still vastly overcrowded as are the other various bridges across the Bay. Apparently the San Mateo Bridge had extended delays this morning.

Nonetheless, thanks to the CalTrans crews who made the process relatively smooth this weekend.

From the not-so-great news category:

Inspectors discovered a crack in a crucial component of the east span of the Bay Bridge on Saturday that could jeopardize the planned Tuesday morning reopening of the bridge. The flaw was found in a chainlike steel link that helps hold up the eastern portion of the bridge. The link is almost 2 inches thick and was cracked halfway through, said Ken Brown, senior bridge engineer.

“The crack is significant enough to have closed the bridge on its own,” Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney announced at a news briefing late Saturday night. “We have to make this repair before we reopen the bridge.” (SF Chronicle 9/6/09)

We should hear more about the details of the repairs today and into tomorrow.  If it’s not open, there will be some very upset commuters Tuesday morning as thousands of people count on the Bay Bridge to get where they need to be. While it’s better safe than sorry, the local economy sure didn’t need extra inconveniences.

The last major auto plant in California has closed today.  NUMMI, a joint project between GM and Toyota, was eventually shifted entirely to Toyota when GM pulled out of the deal.  Toyota has decided that it does not need the plant on its own.

Toyota Motor Corp. has decided to close its auto plant in the Bay Area city of Fremont early next year, eliminating about 4,700 jobs and bringing large-scale automobile production in California to an end.

Executives of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., the joint venture Toyota set up with General Motors Corp. in 1984 to operate the sprawling assembly plant, told its workforce this morning that the plant would shut down in March, according to a union member who attended the meeting. (LA Times 8/27/09)

Other than a few small auto parts plants and minor facilities, like Tesla’s new facility in the bay area, the auto industry has almost completely left California.  Now, we were never a huge auto manufacturing state relative to our size, but this is a landmark.  However, it is symbolic of our ailing manufacturing sector.

If California is to really recover from the last 3 boom-bust cycles, we are going to need to build a truly balanced economy. We can’t build it on real estate or computer programmers alone, we need it all.  And a key part of that is a vibrant manufacturing sector.

Now, some of this will come with the “green jobs” expansion, but green jobs alone probably won’t provide California enough of a manufacturing sector to really create a balanced economy. One would suppose that this is why politicians like John Garamendi were falling all over one another to get NUMMI to stay. They realize that this is a very real issue.

In order to create real meaningful manufacturing sector jobs, we’ll need to provide companies with what we have always done well here in California: providing a qualified and abundant workforce and a good infrastructure. However, with the recent budget cuts, we are growing increasingly in danger of falling behind in both areas.

The way to really build a solid manufacturing sector isn’t to engage in the race to the bottom that some states engage in, but rather to provide an excellent value with excellent resources. California can do that, but we can’t keep slashing and burning through our state government and expect to stay competitive.

As we mentioned last week, the possible BART strike always had a way out.  And yesterday, the good folks at the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 and the BART Board reached a deal that seems more likely to win approval from 1555’s members.

The two sides announced the deal less than six hours before train operators and station agents had planned to walk out and shut down the regional commuter rail system.

“It’s the greatest thing for the Bay Area. It’s what everybody wanted,” said James Fang, vice president of BART’s Board of Directors.

*  *  *

“There are no guarantees in life, but we think this is a solid, fair agreement given the economic times,” said 1555 President] Hunt, who pledged to push hard for ratification. “I’m confident our members will do what’s right for everyone involved.” ([SF Chronicle 8/17/09)

A strike would literally toss the Bay Area into chaos.  As shown by the 1997 BART strike, when BART shuts down, so does much of the Bay Area. (See also this Democracy Now audio report from back in 1997.)

These are tough times for all involved, so it’s not surprising that the unions took a hit in this contract. They had to give up over $100 million in labor costs.  However, there must be balance between labor costs, management costs, and ensuring quality service on the trains.  You can’t just look at one leg of that stool. BART had been using some less than friendly labor tactics during this dispute, and as Gavin Newsom pointed out, the rhetoric did get a smidge heated.

On a somewhat related note, why is everybody running to BART Board Vice-Chairman James Fang for quotes on this? As Greg Dewar pointed out, James Fang is a Republican from San Francisco who uses lies and half-truths to get re-elected.  (It’s a non-partisan position.) In a district that is overwhelmingly progressive, Fang has somehow managed to win re-election. And, toss in the fact that he managed to both delay the implementation of the TransLink Card on BART and waste money on a test of a cell phone payment system, this dude really, really needs to go.  There will be another strong challenge in 2010, and hopefully, this time San Francisco’s highest ranking Republican (kind of funny, huh?) will be tossed out of office and quit wasting BART’s money.