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Filed under: Japan, Plants/Manufacturing, Recalls, Toyota, UAW/Unions

How much Toyota news can you take in one week? Put another way, how much negative press can Toyota absorb? First there was the massive recall, then there was the sales and manufacturing freeze. And now there's this this: The UAW and the Teamsters are planning to rally outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C. and accuse the world's largest automaker of being, "a danger to America."



This might sound like the plot of a James Ellroy novel to some, but here's the interesting/crazy part. The UAW/Teamsters alliance is not protesting ToMoCo because of the manufacturer's gas pedal woes. The two unions are rallying because Toyota is shutting down the New United Motors Manufacturing (NUMMI) assembly plant in Fremont, CA. Here's what the UAW/Teamsters are saying:

[The NUMMI closure] will mean a loss of 5,400 direct jobs and up to 50,000 jobs at suppliers and other supporting businesses. This would be the biggest factory layoff in California since the beginning of the recession. Toyota is also endangering 5,000 middle-class jobs in the car haul industry.

What's a little curious to us is the timing. While the planned protest ostensibly has nothing to do with Gas PedalGate, the timing really is suspicious. Sort of a kick 'em while they're down situation. After all, we've all know about NUMMI's fate for many months. Why this week? Anyone else get the feeling that somewhere, somehow Jimmy Hoffa is smiling?



[Source: Detroit Free Press | Image: Getty]

Report: UAW, Teamsters plan D.C. rally against Toyota over NUMMI plant closing originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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