Article in Wall Street Journal Online June 30, 2006

Could this be the "jolt" that GM needs to make a bold, radical move to convince the public - and Wall Street - that things really are headed in the right direction? Kerkorian has been - relatively speaking, for him - patient in waiting for Rick Wagoner to prove that he can turn the ship around. I'm not expert in such things, but this sure feels like one potentially large step toward Carlos Ghosn being handed the keys to the car. That, of course, is not an original thought, but Kerkorian's going public with the idea of GM, Nissan and Renault joining forces in some meaningful fashion gives real legitimacy to this speculation. And, given Ghosn's reputation as the savant de jour within the auto industry, one can only sit and ponder the potentially positive outcomes of such a move. Very, very interesting...

Kerkorian Presses GM to Join
Alliance of Renault and Nissan

A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
June 30, 2006 2:22 p.m.

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is pressing General Motors Co. to "fully explore" joining the alliance between Renault S.A. and Nissan Motor Co., and said those auto makers are interested in expanding their partnership and buying a minority stake in GM.

Shares of GM were up $2.46, or 9%, at $29.90 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange after earlier spiking to $30.56. Tracinda Corp., Mr. Kerkorian's investment vehicle, owns 9.9% of GM's common stock.

Renault and Nissan Motor confirmed they have been approached and are open to the idea.

Tracinda said it sent a letter to GM Chairman Richard Wagoner in which it proposed that GM's board of directors establish a committee to examine teaming up with Renault and Nissan, which are both run by Carlos Ghosn.

In the letter, disclosed in a regulatory filing, Tracinda said: "It is our understanding that Renault and Nissan are receptive to the concept of including General Motors in their partnership-alliance and purchasing from General Motors a significant minority interest in the company."

Tracinda said the existing French-Japanese partnership has created "tremendous engineering, manufacturing and marketing synergies, resulting in substantial benefits and cost savings to both Renault and Nissan.'' The letter added: "We believe that participating in a global partnership-alliance with Renault and Nissan could enable General Motors to realize substantial synergies and cost savings and thereby greatly benefit the company and enhance shareholder value."

The letter also indicates that Tracinda has reached out to Renault Chairman Louis Schweitzer and Mr. Ghosn, who is chief executive of both Nissan and Renault, to alert them to its contact with GM. In a separate letter advising the two of the GM correspondence, Tracinda noted that "as we recently discussed with Mr. Ghosn, Tracinda believes that General Motors, Renault and Nissan should explore a three-company, partnership-based alliance."

GM issued a three-sentence statement Friday, saying it hadn't received any "offer or proposal from Renault/Nissan with respect to its participating in the Renault/Nissan Alliance, as suggested in the 13-D Filing made today by the Tracinda Corporation. The Tracinda request will be taken under advisement by the GM board of directors. At this time, we have no further comment."

Simon Sproule, corporate vice president of global communications and investor relations for Nissan commenting on behalf of both Renault and Nissan, said both companies are "open" to Tracinda's idea of GM joining the French-Japanese alliance.

Mr. Sproule said GM's board and management team will have to fully support the three-way-alliance idea "in order to start a study of this opportunity." He noted that the Renault-Nissan alliance is an open partnership which has never been restricted to the two partners. "Under the right circumstances and with appropriate partners, the alliance could be expanded further," he said.

The spokesman said the next move is up to GM.

Earlier this week, GM said it expects to report slumping June and July sales amid tough competition and efforts to wean itself from price wars that have hurt industry profitability.

GM's forecast, given at the company's quarterly sales-and-marketing update for analysts and the media, underscored the challenge the company still faces in attracting customers in an era of high gasoline prices, even as the buyouts and early retirements of about 35,000 hourly workers announced Monday show some progress in its efforts to reduce costs. Demand in particular has waned for some of the larger models of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles, which carry hefty profit margins for Detroit's auto makers.

Earlier this year, Jerome York, the senior adviser for Mr. Kerkorian's investment in GM, took a seat on GM's board, less than a month after he prescribed a dividend cut and other tough medicine for the auto giant. Mr. York, at that time, criticized GM management for not setting clear targets in its turnaround effort, in contrast to the approach taken by Mr. Ghosn.

Mr. Ghosn, who took over Nissan in 1999 at a time when the company was near collapse, laid out in public a series of goals for returning Nissan to break-even performance, eliminating debt, and later, achieving specific profit margins. His effort is generally considered the most successful automotive turnaround of recent history, and his name has even gone through the rumor mill as a possible successor to Mr. Wagoner at the helm of GM, which reported a loss of $10.6 billion for 2005.

Good News in June 27, 2006 Detroit Free Press

47,600 hourly workers take severance package from GM, Delphi

June 27, 2006

BY MICHAEL ELLIS and JASON ROBERSON
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS

In a historic exodus, 47,600 U.S. hourly General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. workers have accepted buyouts and early retirement offers as part of a large cost-cutting effort to restore the world's largest automaker to profitability.

The unexpectedly high acceptance rate will result in more than one in three of GM and Delphi's U.S. hourly employees departing by the end of the year, making both companies substantially smaller but more competitive in a brutally tough market.

The companies currently employ about 146,000 hourly workers in the United States. Those accepting the offer include 12,600 workers at Delphi and 35,000 at GM -- far above some early estimates of 20,000 to 25,000.

"We're coming very rapidly on the road back," GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said at a news conference Monday at GM's Renaissance Center headquarters.

The impact on the Michigan economy is uncertain. But a partial list of plants obtained Monday night by the Free Press showed that at least 13,500 workers plan to leave from plants in at least 13 Michigan communities. More than 3,400 in the Lansing area alone will be leaving their GM jobs behind.

The job cuts and other sweeping measures Wagoner enacted in recent months will cut costs by a combined $8 billion annually, part of his plan to recover from last year's $10.6 billion in losses.

Over the past year, GM has announced plans to close or idle a dozen plants in North America, dismissed hundreds of white-collar workers, reduced salaried benefits and won concessions from the UAW to shift some health care costs to hourly retirees. Of the GM workers who accepted the offer, 30,400 elected to retire early and 4,600 took a buyout that pays a lump sum of $70,000 or $140,000, depending on years of service, but with no future benefits.

The popularity of the program enabled GM to beat its target of cutting 30,000 jobs in North America by the end of 2008, more than two years ahead of schedule. In addition to the job-cutting offer, about 6,500 hourly workers left in 2005.

GM and Delphi reached agreements with the UAW and another union, the IUE-CWA, in March on the job-cutting offer as part of their efforts to craft a new labor deal at Delphi. GM, the former parent of Delphi and its largest customer, is obligated for some of the retirement costs of Delphi workers, and therefore took an active role in the negotiations.

The Delphi buyouts could help it avoid a costly strike by allowing the automotive parts supplier to cut its workforce without a confrontation with the UAW. But Delphi, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors last October, is still working on negotiating a new labor contract with the UAW.

As a result of the strong acceptance rate of the attrition program, GM increased to $8 billion from $7 billion the amount it expects its cost-cutting measures to save. Of that total, about $5 billion will be realized this year, GM said.

GM workers had until last Friday to sign up for the early retirement or buyout offer. That also was the deadline for thousands of Delphi workers to take early retirement or to transfer to GM. But many Delphi workers could accept a buyout offer similar to GM's that was announced June 9. Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams said Delphi offered to all hourly workers buyouts ranging from $70,000 to $140,000.

Employees who signed up within the last seven days are still allowed to back out of their decision. But Wagoner said that few had done so in the past.

Even with the large cuts, GM still must reverse the loss of U.S. vehicle sales to competitors such as Toyota Motor Corp.

Gerald Meyers, a professor of management at the University of Michigan and former chief executive at American Motors Corp., said GM should be congratulated for achieving its job-cutting target, but challenges remain ahead.

GM has already cut its UAW workforce heavily -- down from 266,000 in 1993 -- and yet it still hasn't been able to post strong profits consistently. GM suffered its worst year financially in 2005 since nearly going bankrupt in the early 1990s.

"The forces are still there that were cutting them back," Meyers said, referring to GM's falling car and truck sales. "It's not over yet. Unfortunately, in my view, this is one more downsizing, and there will be others."

As workers leave over the remainder of the year, GM will be hard-pressed to keep up its quality, Meyers said.

Brett Hoselton, an auto analyst with Keybanc Capital Markets in Cleveland, Ohio, said the numbers are a little better than he expected. And they only confirm his positive outlook for GM.

"We've been fairly bullish on General Motors for two reasons," he said. "One, we believe they are making substantial changes to the product development program, and two, we thought ... buyouts would be a useful tool." To ease the transition to a smaller workforce, GM has already started hiring temporary workers at some plants, who will be paid wages of about $18 to $19 an hour without benefits.

Traditional union workers cost GM about $81 an hour in 2005, including benefits and retirement costs, or about $168,000 each without overtime, Burnham Securities Inc. analyst David Healy told Bloomberg. Each temporary worker costs about $39,520, he said.

The temporary jobs will eventually be eliminated as GM idles or closes the dozen North American plants it targeted last November, including several in Michigan.

In addition, some GM workers currently in the so-called "jobs bank," where they are paid most of their wages and benefits even though they are not working, could be recalled and put back to work, GM spokesman Dan Flores said. GM also has agreed to hire up to 5,000 workers from Delphi.

The attrition program will cost GM about $3.8 billion.

For tens of thousands of GM and Delphi workers, the offer means a new life outside the automotive industry, and perhaps a short-term spending spree.

"I would think most of this will be saved, but some of this will be spent," said Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Inc. "There's a joke that a lot of man caves are being created."

But Johnson said most of the workers are expected to invest the money for retirement and health care expenses.

Good News in June 23, 2006 Wall Street Journal

Buyouts Promise a Big Boon for GM

Some 37,000 Workers Plan To Exit Auto Maker, Delphi; Fresh Obstacles Emerge

By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN and LEE HAWKINS JR.
June 23, 2006

About 37,000 hourly workers have so far accepted offers by General Motors Corp. and auto supplier Delphi Corp. to leave the companies, union officials say, potentially giving the auto maker greater cuts than expected but presenting a new set of questions to overcome.

In one of the largest employee-buyout programs in U.S. corporate history, about 28,000 GM workers -- or nearly 25% of the car maker's work force represented by the United Auto Workers union -- had taken early-retirement offers or buyouts as of late yesterday for an offer that ends today, UAW officials said. At Delphi, the former GM parts unit that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, about 9,000 workers had so far taken offers, those officials said.

GM in the past had said it hoped to cut 30,000 hourly jobs by 2008 through attrition and other methods, but the buyout program has put it near that goal after less than a year. The number could grow some, as many workers make last-minute decisions, UAW officials said. Workers who put in for a buyout have another week to change their minds. Both GM and Delphi are expected to disclose preliminary numbers next week.

Indications that the offers are drawing more takers than expected have cheered Wall Street, which has worried about GM's ability to stanch hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at its core North American auto operations and the potential liabilities it faces as Delphi seeks to streamline its operations. As a result of the acceleration, John Murphy, analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co., estimated last week that GM by early next year could save $2.5 billion of the $3 billion it had said it expects to save by 2008.

But GM still has to tally the cost of the program, which offered 113,000 UAW workers between $35,000 and $140,000 to leave the auto maker. Workers with 27 years or more at GM would receive full retiree benefits, while workers with less seniority could keep their accumulated pensions. GM may also face questions of whether the right workers at the right plants -- specifically, older workers at plants set to close -- took the buyouts, or whether it may have to realign its work force somewhat to adjust for different acceptance levels at different plants.

GM, which had a loss of $10.5 billion last year, is still discussing when it will release the financial impact of the buyout program. GM spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said it might provide information next week or when it releases second-quarter earnings. "There is an initial cost of offering this program, but in the long term, there is a tremendous ongoing savings," she said.

Ms. Simonetti said a tally of GM's savings must include whatever number of Delphi workers GM takes back as a result of a flowback agreement with its former parts unit. As many as 5,000 Delphi workers can transfer back to GM.

On the issue of staffing at plants, Ms. Simonetti said company officials "have been planning to make sure that we have appropriate staffing levels where needed so we can continue operations."

Delphi made early-retirement and buyout offers to its 24,000 UAW members and later extended them to other unionized Delphi workers. Delphi has about 33,000 hourly employees.

GM expects to see its retirement obligations shrink considerably, since GM employees who accept the cash buyout will forgo larger pensions and health-care benefits.

It isn't clear what percentage of workers took early retirement compared with those who took larger cash buyouts to leave behind retirement health care. At the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., 257 workers out of 1,075 have decided to leave GM, said UAW 2164 President Eldon Renaud. He said 79 workers are taking buyouts and 178 early retirement. "We had 60 walk in and take one of the offers in the last day or so. We will fill about 80 of those jobs with GM people from Oklahoma City or Spring Hill [Tenn.], where plants are closing."

Standard & Poor's credit analyst Robert Schulz said the ratings agency, which has GM rated deep into speculative-grade territory, is encouraged by the company's progress.

Good News in June 24, 2006 Detroit Free Press

Exits soar at Delphi plant

Coopersville buyouts bode well for supplier, GM

BY JASON ROBERSON

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

June 24, 2006

When Robert Betts, UAW president of Local 2151 in Coopersville, got to work Friday morning, 470 of the Delphi plant's 560 workers were in line, signing up to leave the company.

Betts, who has signed up for the $35,000 early retirement offer, fears the attrition program designed to relieve Delphi of its workforce will leave the auto-parts plant without enough workers. Delphi's second attrition offer hasn't been formally issued for the remaining 90 workers.

"That could be a major train wreck. I'm hoping it's not, but I don't think it's avoidable," Betts said. "Time will tell. We're turning people over so fast it's crazy."

Thousands of similar decisions made through Delphi Corp. and General Motors Corp. bode well for the companies' going forward. The fewer active workers they're responsible for, the cheaper GM's bill to bail out bankrupt Delphi.

For GM, the attrition plan allows for a mass exodus of high-wage employees, which moves toward the goal of shedding 30,000 hourly U.S. workers by 2008. Reports and those close to the tallying say the number of GM workers accepting the early retirement or buyout offer has surpassed 28,000, and the number of Delphi workers is at 9,000.

Those empty spots on the assembly line give GM flexibility. It can hire cheaper temporary workers or relieve Delphi of its most-expensive remaining workers by allowing more employees to flow to the automaker's open positions.

And each attrition participant means one less union worker who might strike, which the UAW has threatened to do if Delphi unilaterally cancels labor contracts and slashes wages.

A full strike at Delphi would affect GM in a matter of days and eventually the entire auto industry, starting with other Delphi customers and GM's 3,000 other suppliers.

Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy Oct. 8, seemingly will be positioned well after all of the attrition is tallied, because it will have:

• Alleviated the shock of its sweeping reorganization plan that aims to close 25 of 33 U.S. plants and eliminate 23,000 hourly workers and 8,500 salaried workers.
  
• Simplified remaining negotiations with GM and the unions to reduce wages and benefits. Fewer workers mean fewer have to be convinced to accept concessions.
  
• More resources to devote toward technology initiatives. Earlier this week, Delphi won the first of three rounds of approval from the Department of Energy for a fuel cell that could be available for commercial vehicles or other uses by 2011.
  

"I think Delphi comes out of this smelling pretty good, quite honestly," said Erich Merkle, auto analyst for IRN Inc. of Grand Rapids.

Workers had until midnight to decide whether to accept the attrition offer. After workers check boxes and sign their name on the paper attrition packages, GM spokesman Tom Wickham said, local plant officials will go through the attrition responses, one at time, looking for errors.

The results will be e-mailed to a staff of GM corporate human resources workers. A preliminary tally won't be available until "the middle of the afternoon Monday," Wickham said. GM CEO Rick Wagoner has a news conference scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Monday to reveal the results.

There is concern that the attrition plan could be too successful, Merrill Lynch auto analyst John Murphy told clients.

"If the take rate is significantly above our estimate of 30,000, there may be some offsetting costs associated with hiring temporary workers to backfill." Murphy said. "This could pose a short-term problem, which we view as a high-class problem that can be resolved over time."

Good News in June 4, 2006 Detroit Free Press

KENNETH HARNEY: Middle America poised for real estate gains
June 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Could the real estate action be shifting to the heartland -- the vast swath of middle America that never really was touched by the hyperinflationary housing boom?

That's what a new statistical analysis of housing price cycles in 100 major metropolitan areas suggests could be over the horizon. Its author, Christopher L. Cagan, director of research and analytics for First American Real Estate Solutions, examined historical housing price movements and concluded that metropolitan real estate markets can be placed into three distinct categories:

• Linear markets, where booms and busts virtually never occur. Prices plod along, year in and year out, gaining modestly. Local changes in economic growth may nudge prices up or down, but the moves rarely are dramatic. Much of the middle-American heartland fits in this category. Examples include Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Houston; San Antonio; Memphis, Tenn.; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Des Moines, Iowa, and Louisville, Ky.
• Cyclic markets. These are the shooting stars of housing booms. Generally they are located along the East and West coasts, where household incomes are higher and land for new construction is in short supply. They include most of California from the San Francisco Bay area south, much of Florida, metropolitan Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, New York and much of New England. When conditions are ripe -- as they have been recently -- annual housing gains in these areas can exceed 20% to 30% at the cyclical peak. Typically, however, the local booms burn themselves out by pushing prices to unaffordable levels.
  Some cyclic markets experience jolting corrections that knock prices down by 15% to 25%, as occurred in southern California in the early 1990s following a multiyear boom. Other markets' corrections may be less severe; appreciation rates dwindle to the low single digits or go flat for a while, then begin the upward

Good News in June 18, 2006 Wall Street Journal

Delphi Reaches Buyout Agreement With Union, GM for Hourly Workers

Associated PressJune 18, 2006 11:30 a.m.

DETROIT -- Delphi Corp. has reached an agreement with its second-largest union and General Motors Corp. to offer buyouts to hourly workers that is similar to an earlier deal with the United Auto Workers union.

The auto parts supplier announced the agreement with the International Union of Electronic Workers-Communications Workers of America and GM, Delphi's former parent and its largest customer, late Friday.

"We continue to be focused on the transformation of Delphi and this attrition plan provides a stronger framework to position our successful emergence from Chapter 11," Delphi President and Chief Operating Officer Rodney O'Neal said in a statement. "This plan further enables an effective transformation of our U.S. manufacturing and support operations."

Delphi said the deal was an important step in its restructuring.

GM has agreed to provide financial support under the proposed plan, which is subject to bankruptcy court approval, Delphi said. GM spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said Saturday that the automaker will split the cost with Delphi.

"This is just another good step in reaching a consensual resolution in the Delphi bankruptcy and restructuring situation," Simonetti said. "We're pleased with that."

About 8,000 hourly workers represented by the IUE-CWA are eligible to participate. Some may be offered a lump sum payment of $35,000 to retire, Delphi said, while eligible employees may decide to accept buyout packages ranging from $40,000 to $140,000.

The plan also permits the transition of up to 3,200 Delphi workers represented by the IUE-CWA to GM for retirement purposes, Delphi said.

Messages seeking additional information were left Saturday with Delphi and the IUE-CWA.

Delphi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October. The buyouts are part of an effort to provide early-retirement incentives to Delphi workers as the Troy, Mich.-based company seeks to cut its work force.

Earlier this month, Delphi announced a deal with the UAW and GM to offer buyouts to all hourly employees. Those buyouts greatly expand early-retirement incentives announced in March and meant that all UAW-represented employees will be offered something if they want to leave the company.

The UAW -- the largest of Delphi's six unions -- represents about 22,000 of Delphi's 31,000 workers. At the time, Delphi said it was negotiating with other unions to offer similar packages for their members.

GM and Ford Motor Co. also are working to trim their work forces. (See related story.) GM, which offered buyouts to all of its 113,000 U.S. hourly workers, plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close 12 facilities by 2008. And Ford announced in January it would cut up to 30,000 jobs and close 14 facilities by 2012.

Last week, UAW officials said about 25,000 GM workers and 8,500 from Delphi have agreed to take buyout or early-retirement offers. On Saturday, Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said the automaker expects 10,000 to 11,000 of its union workers to take early-retirement or buyout offers this year.

Good News in June 17, 2006 Wall Street Journal

GM's and Ford's Strides With Buyouts Might Ease Financial Crunch

By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN and LEE HAWKINS , JR.
June 17, 2006

DETROIT -- Auto makers Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. have made significant strides in their efforts to pare down their hourly work forces through early-retirement and buyout offers, developments that have the potential to ease each company's financial crunch this year.

Ford now expects 10,000 to 11,000 of its unionized work force will this year accept early-retirement offers or some other buyout package, up from the its original expectation of roughly 6,000 a year over the next five years. The auto maker also eliminated the equivalent of about 4,000 salaried positions in the first quarter of the year, a figure that includes cuts to contract and agency workers.

"That's pretty good progress," Ford North American President Mark Fields said in an interview Friday.

On Thursday, the United Auto Workers said about 25,000 employees have agreed to accept cash and other incentives to voluntarily leave GM, putting the auto maker near its goal of shedding 30,000 workers. A GM spokeswoman said the company isn't releasing the number of workers who have accepted buyouts before the June 23 deadline for signing up. But she said the figures cited by the UAW are "in the ballpark." An additional 8,500 workers at Delphi Corp., GM's former parts unit, have also signed up for buyout offers, the UAW said.

At Ford, Mr. Fields was brought in last year to turn around the company's ailing North American operations. His "Way Forward" restructuring plan calls for closing 10 or more plants. The plan has come under growing scrutiny from investors, credit-rating agencies and industry analysts as Ford vehicle sales drop this year. Even key products like the Ford F-series pickup truck have seen sales flatten. Ford's North American operation lost $457 million in the first quarter.

Mr. Fields said the sales year has gone largely as he expected, except for a faster consumer swing away from trucks and SUVs and toward cars. Nevertheless, Mr. Fields said the company is "exactly where I expect us to be" five months into the turnaround plan.

Wall Street analysts reacted particularly favorably to the GM buyout figures. "This is a significant acceleration of the plan they announced in November," said John Murphy, a Merrill Lynch analyst.

GM had previously forecast it would save about $3 billion by the end of 2008, but as a result of the updated figures, Mr. Murphy now estimates that the buyouts can save GM about $2.5 billion of that $3 billion by early 2007. He added that GM could start to see some related savings in the second half of 2006, as some workers may choose to leave GM before then.

As a result, the accelerated cuts could help GM improve its earnings as early as this year. "I think this alone will be one of the major drivers of an earnings improvement from 2006 to 2007," Mr. Murphy said, adding that he estimates that GM will save a total of about $3 billion in pretax costs in all of 2007.

With more GM workers taking the buyout, analysts are fixated more than ever on whether GM can make similarly swift progress on its talks with Delphi and the UAW. Mr. Murphy said it is unclear if the accelerated buyouts will also relieve some of GM's costs relative to the JOBS bank program, which provides pay and benefits to idled workers. "There could be quite a few takers as of now out of the JOBS bank, but as of right now, this does not technically eliminate the JOBS bank," Mr. Murphy said. He said the JOBS bank will be a critical issue in the 2007 labor negotiations.

GM's talks with Delphi and the future of the JOBS bank are likely to also be closely watched by the credit ratings agencies in the coming months. Standard & Poor's, which has GM rated at "B" credit watch with negative implications (several notches below investment grade), said the Delphi situation is still its chief concern. "The higher buyout number won't lead to us resolving the credit watch any sooner because that depends largely on what happens to Delphi," said S&P analyst Robert Schulz.

Earlier this week, S&P said that because the Delphi court hearings were adjourned until Aug. 11, it would keep GM's rating on credit watch for the next few months. In the interim, the talks between Delphi, GM and UAW are expected to continue. At the end of March, GM had about $21.6 billion on its balance sheet.

Together the Ford, GM and Delphi buyout plans mean nearly 45,000 unionized workers are deciding to leave the traditional auto industry just this year. This sweeping reduction of the unionized auto industry comes at the same time Asian auto makers open nonunion plants, such as the Toyota Motor Corp. operation in San Antonio, Texas, which will open later this year.