Good!NUMMI (or whats left of it in a small office several blocks from the plant) is also separately suing GM.
http://online.wsj.com/article/...ticleAs far as where they got their 2006 and $70 million numbers. Major model was change was '09. A lot of new equipment was purchased for this. Not just stamping dies, hundreds of robots in body weld, new equipment in paint, plastics, and assembly. A lot of equipment that wasn't replaced had to be modified. I've got no clue how much it all costs or how they split the GM and Toyota costs, but it is a lot of money. As someone who was there through it all, I gotta admit, Toyota and NUMMI treated us fairly well as a whole, although there are many individuals who may think differently. I do think that if they wanted to, Toyota could have kept that place open and ran it on their own - they basically did run it and had most of the input of running it as is. But it was a business decision. With the high costs and crazy business climate in California, combined with the fact that it was the only unionized plant in North America that Toyota was affiliated with, I can't blame them for wanting to bail out. But if it had to be done, they did us right. They gave us 8 months notice. Apparently when GM closed it the first time, people just showed to work one day to a locked plant. They also gave us a bit of a retention package that they didn't have to give us. Granted, it wasn't nearly as much as the buy out offers both Toyota and GM offered their employees over the last few years. But considering the fact that they didn't have to give us anything, it wasn't a bad deal. They also set us up with job fairs, training classes, and other things. GM on the other hand, they just bailed and left town man. That place was built as a GM plant in the '60's. GM ran that place on their own through the early 80's. And when GM bailed for the second time, they just left. Didn't want to have anything to do with helping out the employees or the costs of shutting down the plant. NUMMI ran a fairly clean operation. But technology and environmental regulations have changed a lot from the 60's to now. It hasn't been proven, but many think there is a lot of lead and other crap in the ground and on that site from over 40 years of automobile manufacturing there. And if there is, GM should pay their fair share for cleaning it up. And honestly, they didn't have to, wasn't anything in our labor contract, but they should have done a little something to help employees, just as Toyota did. Toyota was smart though. NUMMI, including all land and buildings, was valued at $1 billion the last couple of months while we were in operation. Toyota turned around, sold the plant to Tesla for $42 million, and then bought $50 million in Tesla stock...basically gave them the plant. I could be wrong, but I think that was Toyota's way of getting out of the liability of having to clean up that site should it be used for something else. Back on topic, I hope NUMMI and Toyota get all they are suing GM for, although the fact that they bailed out while they were in bankruptcy may make that impossible.