Consumer Federation of California

As Toyota executives appear before congressional hearings investigating the auto maker’s safety problems, California Treasurer Bill Lockyer named Richard Holober, Consumer Federation of California Executive Director, to serve on a Blue Ribbon Commission to study the impact of the planned closing of the Fremont NUMMI plant on the state’s economy.

Toyota’s announcement in August 2009 of its plans to shut down its highly praised NUMMI plant in Fremont and relocate in another state has generated widespread alarm about the devastation this action would mean for the state, which accounts for a large percent of the company’s U.S. sales.

The closure would idle the plant’s more than 5,000 employees — making it the largest mass layoff since the start of the Great Recession — and another 50,000 California workers at companies up and down the supply chain for the factory, which has been rated year after year by J.D. Powers as a model operation.

For more information, please check out the white paper recently prepared by Professor Harley Shaiken from the University of California, Berkeley entitled “Commitment Is a Two-Way Street: Toyota, California, and NUMMI“.