Toyota may have one of the greenest images of any automaker around, but that doesn’t mean the Japanese automaker is immune to the slumping truck market. Tundra sales are down nearly 50 percent this year, but unlike its domestic counterparts, Toyota plans to keep workers at its Texas truck plant plenty busy during the downturn.
Toyota is planning to idle its San Antonio, Texas truck plant for three months beginning in August, but the plant’s 2,000 workers needn’t worry about job security. Employees will still report to work but will spend their days in “training and development, to continue quality improvement activities, and to perform community service work,” rather than building pickup trucks.
“Team members will continue to report to work and will continue to work as a two-shift operation, and they will continue to be paid 100 percent of wages,” Toyota spokesman Mike de la Garza told Automotive News.
Although it seems shocking that Toyota would continue to employ its workers when there is no work to be done, it shows that the Japanese automaker is still committed to the Texas truck market, even if demand is sagging. Automotive News also speculates that Toyota will keep employees on the payroll to help hold off a move by the UAW to unionize the plant.
The Texas plant is slated to become the lone Tundra production facility in 2009.
