For 25 years NUMMI workers have made award-winning, high-quality cars for Toyota. While the economic crisis has affected the auto industry worldwide, Toyota has never closed a factory or laid off a single full-time worker in Japan -- apparently Toyota feels American workers are more expendable.
The closure of NUMMI will have a devastating impact on California's already ailing economy and on every California family. At stake are the jobs of 4,500 autoworkers and 50,000 supplier and support workers at more than 1,000 businesses throughout the state. Job loss of this magnitude will have a crippling effect on small businesses in many communities and drastically reduce tax revenue needed for roads, parks, schools and other public services.
California is by far Toyota's single biggest market for automobile sales in the United States. Californians, and in fact all Americans, have supported Toyota not only as consumers but as taxpayers, financing the recent federal "cash for clunkers" program which benefited Toyota more than any other car company. And now Toyota has launched a $1 billion marketing campaign to increase sales in California and the United States -- at the same time they are shipping our jobs away!
We have the power to insist Toyota honor its commitment to produce quality cars in California. Sign the petition and take the pledge not to purchase Toyota products if Toyota closes the NUMMI plant. By standing together we can save 50,000 good-paying jobs.
