Post-NUMMI Options Beyond Severance

 The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously 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 on  Thursday.
     
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.