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The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to spend $6.5 million for re-training and re-employment services for workers at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, which will close tomorrow.
County officials said there won’t be any net county costs for the services because the money will come from federal plant closure funding and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
Alameda County Workforce Investment Board Director Dorothy Chen said the county also hopes to get additional funding from a $30 million national emergency grant request that the California Employment Development Department has submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor to help workers in six Bay Area counties that are most directly impacted by the closure of NUMMI.
Chen said the re-training and re-employment services will help 4,700 employees who have worked at NUMMI as well as employees at companies that are suppliers for the auto plant.
She estimated that about 25 or 30 Alameda County companies are suppliers for NUMMI and they employ about 5,000 people.
NUMMI was a 25-year-long joint venture between General Motors and Toyota, but GM announced last June that it would withdraw from the partnership and Toyota announced in August that it wouldn’t order any more vehicles from the plant after April 1.
NUMMI stopped making Toyota Trucks last Friday and on Thursday it will completely close. It is still making Toyota Corolla cars.
Chen said most of the re-training will be done by the United Auto Workers Labor Employment and Training Corp. at the union hall across the street from the NUMMI plant.
Additional re-training services will be provided by the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District.
Chen said NUMMI employees will receive enhanced services because they’re becoming unemployed as a result of trade issues.
She said they’ll be eligible for $10,000 in re-training costs if they enter a new field of work, three years of unemployment benefits and having 80 percent of their health insurance costs paid.
Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News
Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News
They get THREE years of unenployment benefits and 80% of their health insurance costs paid, in addition to $10k in retraining costs????? I won’t be shedding any tears for them. There are thousands of unemployed workers in the bay area MUCH worse off than they are.
This is in addition to the $15,000 dollars they get plus $1,000 for every year of service. Some will get about $63,000 in severance plus unemployment now plus 80% of healthcare.
are you guys jealous…i thought you all rich? jealous bugs…
And people think Obama is a bad guy … this is the stupidest expenditure I’ve ever seen. Okay Right … blast them for being Communist … okay left swing back by saying this is favoritism of the privileged. I’m waiting to hear the disgust at this tripe.
Resident?
what are you talking about? Obambi put a round behind the ear of every person who worked at NUMMI. The irony is that they voted for the idiot.
I have read all these comments and have come to a few conclusions. I work at NUMMI. I’m 55, and worked many jobs since I was 16 years old. For about 40years I have paid taxes to support everyone else. I’ve never taken unemployeement in my life. I went to nite college and got my degree, and paid for it on my own. You talk about all the money that’s going to be paid out for training, did you know the severance that NUMMI is paying out, the Government is taking 43% right off the top out of each payment, our government always makes sure they get theirs. So it’s not hitting the Tax payers as hard as you think since they are taking it from us in the first place. So now do the math and truly figure out how much money these NUMMI employees are getting. These people at NUMMI are good people, they don’t want a handout, they want honest work. I did not vote for Obama. I only vote for those who have served in the Military for our country.
Just another company fleeing California for a more business friendly State. Many times the motivating factor is not reduced wages, but reduced bureaucracy, regulation, and union stranglehold on their business.
If the former employees are getting severance packages, they may have enough to pay to enroll in courses for a new career. Or, let their unions pay them to attend retraining.
There is little doubt that the Dem “friends of the unions” have thrown the NUMMI workers under the bus, by ignoring the potential for the plant closing until it was too late. A sad set of circumstances.
Falcon, sorry that you have lost your job, like so many other people have. I too put myself through school, worked hard, made my way up the ladder, and I lost my job also, without any severance package. But where was the Alameda County Stuporvisors with my ‘handout’? People aren’t saying the NUMMI employees themselves are to blame. But, where is the justice that NUMMI employees receive a county hand out, and not anyone else. Why should we pay for non-county NUMMI employee retraining? I’m quite sure that a good portion of employees do not live in Alameda County. Just screams of you scratch mine and I’ll scratch yours.
$6.5 million for re-training and re-employment services? Isn’t that why these guys have been paying union dues? Is this not part of the scope of what a union is supposed to provide for it’s workers?
So, now the taxpayers (thorugh the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) get to pay for these re-training? And don’t tell me it’s not taxpayer money. Looks like all those donations from the union to the Dems has paid off—with our money.
Retraining, re-employment, severance pay and unemployment pay—sounds like these guys don’t deserve all the fawning news coverage they’ve been getting about their terrible plight.