Would be a good P.R. move on their part ...


Paul
Allscion -- an e-commerce Website with news and accessories for your Scion vehicles
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http://online.wsj.com/article_print/...131571148.html

 

UAW + Toyota = GM destruction.

 

Yup! R.I.P. GM...

 

Toyota - UAW = GM destruction

 

UAW+anything = destruction

 

Destruction - UAW = Anything

 

Well there goes the quality of Toyota out the window and in
the gutter with the American work ethic.

 

If it is made by the UAW, forget it. I'll never buy it. Learned my lesson on the wife's Dodge POS.

 

well it looks like they are steering clear on the UAW.

And raven, there are lots of toyotas being made in the US. In fact all the toyotas ive owned are US cars except the scion i have now.

 

I heard UAW is protesting the new toyota plant.

 

They already build their V8's in Huntsville... We got more room...

 

Toyota will do what it can to avoid the UAW and all the worthless baggage it carries with it. In the end though, it's up to the employees to deicide whether they want union representaton, not Toyota. Hopefully better judgment will prevail and the employees will see that the UAW is just a ball-and-chain tied to the company's legs. In the end it will only do more harm than good for the long term employment security of the workers.

 

Sounds like the UAW has scared off Toyota. They had considered other Michigan cities too. Too bad because Michigan needs jobs badly.

http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicl...650.xml&coll=8

One of Michigan's top auto analysts warns Toyota Motor Co. might not build its new engine plant in West Michigan because it is worried about union unrest, starting with Delphi Corp. dissident Gregg Shotwell.

"It's a very dangerous period," analyst David Cole said Thursday. "What concerned me is Coopersville-Delphi-Shotwell receives so much press attention; I can tell you we had Japanese executives come to us and say, 'What's going on here?"'

The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 7 that Toyota executives are considering the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek areas. One of the reasons the area is being considered is because southwestern Michigan is considered less influenced by the United Auto Workers union, a Toyota executive said in the Journal article.

Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said he needed to speak out in an effort to limit the damage he says Shotwell's highly-visible activism is creating.

But Shotwell, a machinist at Delphi's Coopersville plant, charges Cole is trying to distract attention from problems at Delphi and General Motors Corp.

Shotwell authors an online newsletter Live Bait & Ammo, posted on his own Web site at greggshotwell.net, and heads Soldiers of Solidarity, a splinter group of the United Auto Workers.

Cole worries about the restless labor movement's potential impact. He wants to bring some of Toyota's top brass to Holland, to visit the former Prince Corp. site now owned by Johnson Controls Inc.

"That would be just a fabulous area. There's land around Hudsonville, Zeeland, that could draw a fabulous location," he said.

Another potential West Michigan site for a Toyota engine plant or assembly plant is Muskegon County's "large lot" industrial park at its Wastewater Management System. Muskegon economic developers three years ago pitched the Apple Avenue site to Toyota North America officials before the company finally put a truck assembly plant outside of San Antonio, Texas.

West Michigan is well positioned as long as Toyota is not scared off.

"These people are very good at connecting the dots. Pickets. Auto Show. Celebration of the Industry. Coopersville. Shotwell," Cole said. "If Shotwell doesn't realize, he's caused a bad thing to happen that's really tarnished the West Michigan reputation."

Shotwell, who has been interviewed by local and national media including PBS-TV's "Jim Lehrer Report," is not buying Cole's rationale.

"I don't think Toyota builds their plants based on what a machine operator in Coopersville is doing," Shotwell said Thursday. "The real issue is fraud, racketeering, workers losing their pensions and dumping all this responsibility on the government."

Under federal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI, Delphi misstated earnings in 2001 and 2002 amounting to a $300 million reduction. And workers' pensions could be offloaded in the process of bankruptcy.

The Troy-based firm employs about 1,300 at two plants in West Michigan, a fuel-injector plant in Coopersville and a valve-lifter plant in Wyoming.

Shotwell, who has been rallying rank-and-file at the Delphi's Coopersville and Wyoming plants, and Cole, the son of late GM President Edward Cole, have never met.

"I don't have any intention of changing because of David Cole, a scion of a GM family whose legacy is not being threatened," Shotwell said. "This is a big issue for him because he wants to distract from the real issue."

Cole is eager for Toyota and other foreign automakers to appreciate the talents of West Michigan workers. The foreign firms have had some struggles with unskilled workers at plants in the South.

"When they start talking about high-tech manufacturing, the workforce there is not where it needs to be," Cole said.

Meanwhile, Toyota officials remain mum on their search for a plant site.

"Nothing has been confirmed either in Michigan or anywhere else at this point, and that's really where it is," Toyota spokeswoman Mira Sleilati said. "There have not been any decisions."

"I don't think Toyota builds their plants based on what a machine operator in Coopersville is doing. The real issue is fraud, racketeering, workers losing their pensions and dumping all this responsibility on the government." -- Greg Shotwell, a machinist at Delphi's Coopersville plant.
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If they can pull it off without UAW then yes it will be good for the economy and for consumers.

 

.....and the workers.

 

Anyone catch this on the above posted article:

 

I'm glad Toyota is considering coming to Michigan. I live in Michigan and the state is having a real hard time with unemployment right now. I think it's a great move.

 

Got to love the union mentality.. In an area that desperately needs jobs, they make threats. What loosers.

 

We need jobs in Michigan but even with all the problems and lost jobs we have the UAW is still going to cost us even more of them.

 

I wouldn't worry abotu the UAW - they've been voted down and out of EVERY Toyota plant in the U.S. so far, by the workers. The workers see how effed up the UAW is, and know that a job in 10 years is more important than "more money, less hours".

UAW = not seeing forest for trees