Toyota to pay California workers $250m

Tokyo: Toyota Motor Corp, the world's largest carmaker, said it's providing $250 million (Dh917 million) for workers who will lose their jobs when a former joint-venture auto-assembly plant in California closes next month.

The money is for bonuses to salaried and hourly workers who keep building vehicles through April 1, when Toyota's production contract with the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc venture ends, the automaker said yesterday in a statement. The plant has 4,700 employees, said Lance Tomasu, a spokesman for the factory.

Assets

Toyota said in August that it wouldn't run the Fremont, California, plant, known as Nummi, by itself as the former General Motors Corp pulled out after 25 years. Motors Liquidation Co, which took over assets shed as the new General Motors Co exited bankruptcy in July, hasn't committed to financial aid to the factory's workers.

"The support we are providing to Nummi underscores our commitment to do our part," said Jim Wiseman, a group vice president for Toyota's North American unit.

"It is unfortunate that neither GM — Nummi's other 50 per cent shareholder and customer for 25 years — nor Motors Liquidation Company, its current shareholder, has indicated that it will do the same."

Nummi, California's last large auto-assembly plant, opened in 1984 as an experiment for GM to study Toyota's manufacturing system. The factory had been solely owned and operated by GM from the early 1960s until the Detroit-based automaker closed it in 1982.