Lynn Chess, a safety training coordinator at NUMMI, collects signatures on petitions asking Toyota to keep the NUMMI plant open. Chess has worked there since 1991.

When Lynn Chess went to work at the New United Motor Manufac-

turing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in 1991, she thought she would finally have lasting security for herself and her family.

And for a long time she did. Chess got her two children off to a good start in life, even putting her daughter through college.

Now the 53-year-old grandmother may have to start over again.

Why? Not because she didn’t work hard every day – along with her 4,500 dedicated co-workers and members of UAW Local 2244 – to build top-quality cars and trucks at the award-winning plant. Toyota has decided to move production from the Fremont, Calif., facility to plants in Texas, Canada and Japan.

“It’s really weird. I always thought this is where I was going to retire from,” she said.

A safety training coordinator at the NUMMI plant, Chess is looking for another job but worries her age and lack of college degree may work against her.

“With the skills I learned going through union and company training, I know I can do the job,” she said of the few openings she’s seen. “But I don’t have the degree and that part worries me – that I won’t be able to make the money I make right now.”

NUMMI began in 1984 as a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. The plant makes the Toyota Tacoma pickup and Toyota Corolla sedan. It also produced the Pontiac Vibe. GM’s stake in the company was transferred to the Motor Liquidation Corp. following its decision to discontinue its Pontiac division as part of a corporate restructuring.

“The NUMMI venture has been a success story from day one,” said UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, who directs the union’s Transnationals Department. “Whether you’re talking about efficiency, quality, labor relations or sales, this plant and its UAW workforce has performed exceedingly well. There’s no reason to close it and move production to nonunion facilities. It’s truly a slap in the face to the workers, to Californians and to all Americans.”

California has been good to Toyota, accounting for the largest share of the company’s North American sales.

“Not only have Californians been exceptionally loyal customers for Toyota, they have also supported the company with their tax dollars that have financed training and provided tax abatements and the federal cash-for-clunkers program,” said UAW Region 5 Director Jim Wells. “The state deserves better from the company it has supported since Toyota first began selling cars here in the mid-1970s.”

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and most of the state’s congressional delegation agree. They wrote letters to the head of Toyota North America urging him to keep the plant open, and short of that, to ensure the company negotiates with the UAW a fair closing package – one that is comparable with what Toyota and GM have offered to workers at their other facilities during recent layoffs, and that includes health care continuation, severance, retiree health care and retraining assistance.

Up to 50,000 supplier and support jobs in California will be lost if Toyota closes the NUMMI facility.

Chess and 30 co-workers, handed out leaflets and collected petition signatures at the Los Angeles Auto Show in December, along with canvassing Toyota dealerships and other locations.

“We just want to give it our best effort to get Toyota to rethink closing the plant, because it’s going to affect thousands of jobs in California,” said Chess. “Anything’s possible; you just never know.”

Christine Moroski