NPR's "This American Life" really dug deep when it comes to the recently closed New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont.
Last week's show was dedicated to the history of NUMMI and was a fascinating radio hour.
You may not know it, but before NUMMI was NUMMI it was a Chevy truck plant. During those Chevy years, it was apparently a horrible place to work. It was so dysfunctional, it had a prostitution problem on the assembly line.
The way Toyota and General Motors turned the plant around is the stuff of corporate legends.
You can learn a lot more about NUMMI's history at this link.
The last Toyota automobile rolled off the assembly line last week leaving 4,700 Bay Area residents without a job.
NUMMI was a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota, but GM announced last June that it would withdraw from the partnership. Toyota announced in August that it wouldn't order any more vehicles from the plant after April 1, 2010.
