Toyota announced plans to close its New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif. on April 1. The closure of the NUMMI plant will put 4,700 workers out of work, and into the growing mass of recently unemployed workers struggling to survive the economic crisis. According to a state commission, the NUMMI closure will affect 25,000 additional workers who work at suppliers that conduct business with the plant.
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Some ruling-class politicians and state government officials have implored Toyota to keep the plant open. California Treasurer Bill Lockyer said the closure would cost taxpayers an estimated $2.3 billion and further damage the state’s already crippled economy.
Bob King, vice president of the United Auto Workers, has taken a tougher stance, calling for a boycott of Toyota until the company reverses its decision.
The NUMMI case shows just how irrational, wasteful and undemocratic capitalism really is. The factory works fine, the workers are ready and willing to work, and its closure will have a devastating impact on the local economy. Under such conditions, no rational economic and political system would allow the plant to simply be shut down.
Economic decisions of this magnitude impact millions of working-class people, yet we have no say in them. For that matter, neither do politicians, as the unheeded supplications of Californian government officials have shown. Under capitalism, a tiny minority of super-rich corporate executives beholden only to investors rules over the economy.
These individuals have no obligation, either morally or legally, to make a decision in the interest of the majority. Quite the contrary: Extensive legislation mandates that corporate executives put the interests of investors above all other considerations. It does not matter if the NUMMI factory is still turning a profit. As long as the capitalists believe they can make a greater profit somewhere else, they will shut it down.
At this point, it appears that Toyota will, in fact, close NUMMI on April 1. Progressive organizations and individuals must continue to mobilize and pressure on Toyota to prevent this from happening. We must forcefully reject the corporate owners’ attempts to blame workers and their union for the company’s problems.
Above all, the case of NUMMI shows the necessity of building a militant labor movement, which will strike and occupy workplaces and mobilize affected communities to keep them open. It also is a lesson in why capitalism must be replaced with socialism—a social system that removes economic decision-making from the hands of the few, and gives it to the class that does all the work.
