Regional Impact
The class action lawsuit alleges that Toyota turned its back on its disabled and injured employees who had dedicated themselves to the company. The Toyota NUMMI Blue Ribbon Commission issued a scathing report detailing how the plant closure represents a betrayal of state, greater Bay Area, and Toyota’s own stated core values.The report, entitled “Commitment Is a Two-Way Street: Toyota, California, and NUMMI” was written by UC Berkeley Professor Harley Shaiken. You can download a copy of the report here. The Toyota NUMMI Blue Ribbon Commission is an independent group commissioned by California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer.
Highlights from the report include the following facts:
• Toyota is the wealthiest automaker in the world, having earned a record $65 billion between 2004 and 2008 alone.
• The United States is Toyota’s largest market in the world. California accounted for almost 18 percent of Toyota’s U.S. sales and 5 percent of the automaker’s global sales in 2007.
• Toyota led California sales with a quarter of the market, more than the combined share of General Motors and Ford in 2009.
• NUMMI was formed in 1984 as a joint venture with General Motors. The closure will idle 4,700 workers at the plant, the largest mass layoff in California since the Great Recession began in December 2007. The shutdown will threaten an additional 19,908 related jobs across the state, putting a total of almost 25,000 jobs at risk, according to a projection from the East Bay Economic Development Alliance (East Bay EDA).
• The plant’s annual payroll and benefits total $512 million. Its suppliers and “derivative workers”—from nurses to schoolteachers—add another $904 million. That means a total of more than $1.4 billion in annual payroll and benefits will vanish from the economy.
• California has invested heavily in NUMMI, from training funds to infrastructure improvements. The state has given NUMMI more than $18 million for training since the plant’s inception—one of the largest single grants from California’s Employment Training Panel (ETP) in history. This aid included more than $10 million in the last seven years alone. Millions more have gone to NUMMI suppliers for training. Major infrastructure improvements have been done explicitly for the plant and to meet its needs. The Port of Oakland, for example, was dredged 12 years ago to accommodate the kinds of cargo ships the plant requires at a cost of $410 million.
• Workers at the NUMMI plant built Corollas – the most popular model in the 2009 “Cash for Clunkers” program sponsored by the federal government.
• NUMMI has been among the most heralded manufacturing plants in the U.S. for a quarter century. It remained very competitive, had high productivity, award-winning quality and competitive labor costs.
• The plant’s most important asset was its highly skilled and experienced workforce. Their average age is 45 and they’ve worked at NUMMI an average of 13.5 years. Their talent, skill and problem-solving ability are at the heart of the famed Toyota Production System.
• The closure amounts to an abandonment of one of Toyota’s core values: job security for its workers. NUMMI is the first plant shutdown in the Toyota’s 73-year history.
• Toyota has only built about half the vehicles it sells in this market in the U.S. The rest have been imported from Japan, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere. In 2000, Toyota built in the U.S. 57 percent of the 1.6 million vehicles it sold here. That percentage slid to 49 percent of 1.8 million in sales in 2009. With NUMMI’s closure, Toyota is on track to produce 44 percent of a projected 2 million vehicles in 2010 and 39 percent of 2.4 million cars and trucks in 2011.
• In contrast, Toyota built nearly 5 million vehicles in Japan in 2007, almost 225 percent of the 2.2 million it sold there. The rest were exported.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: February 3, 2012
We are pleased to announce that the court granted final approval of the Settlement Agreement on February 3, 2012.
NUMMI and Toyota have agreed to pay $6,000,000 to resolve this case. The press release is available here.
The deadline to submit completed Acknowledgment or Claim Form was November 29, 2011. No additional Acknowledgment or Claim Forms will be accepted.
To verify if the form you returned was received, please contact the Settlement Administrator. The Settlement Administrator is Gilardi & Co. The phone number is (415) 461-0410.
Payment of Settlement Funds: Settlement payments will mailed in mid-March 2012. At this time, we do not know the precise amount each eligible class member will receive.
Case Background
On April 1, 2010, 5,400 employees lost their jobs when New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) closed its doors. All NUMMI employees were offered a severance agreement (also referred to as a "Retention Payment"). However, employees who were on a disability leave of absence at any time from October 1, 2009 through April 1, 2010 were offered substantially less money and were not entitled to other valuable benefits such as transitional services. For some longtime employees, the potential loss exceeds $50,000.
On July 14, 2010, a group of former employees filed a class action lawsuit in federal court against NUMMI and Toyota alleging that the severance package offered by the auto giant discriminates against injured and disabled employees. The class action suit also claims that disabled workers were denied transitional employment services, such as career and skills assessments.
In August 2011 NUMMI and Toyota agreed to pay $6,000,000 to resolve all of the legal claims raised in the lawsuit. The Court must give final approval the terms of the Settlement Agreement before the settlement can be distributed. A final approval hearing is set for February 3, 2012.
Contact Us
If you have any questions please call us at (510) 420-1400 or send an email to info@nummilawsuit.com.