California officials say as many as 40,000 jobs could be lost after Toyota closes the plant in Fremont, Calif., where it builds the popular Corolla sedan and a small pickup, the Tacoma. And the U.A.W., which accused Toyota of callously abandoning its workers, criticized it for shifting Corolla production to Canada and Japan after millions of dollars in cash-for-clunkers rebates from the United States government caused sales of that car to surge.
“It has all the ingredients of a real mess,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist at the University of California, Berkeley.
