Factory Closings

Superior Industries International Inc., an aluminum wheel supplier to most major U.S. and foreign automakers, said Tuesday that it would close its plant in Van Nuys by the end of the second quarter and fire 290 employees, or 9% of its workforce. The company, which expects to save $16.5 million annually in labor costs, said it was making the cuts because the slumping vehicle sales mean less demand for wheels.

Toyota Motor Corp. appears to be moving closer to shuttering California's last auto plant. The Japanese automaker plans to start talks next week that could dissolve New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, which opened in Fremont in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture of Toyota and then-General Motors Corp.

First, Tao Shoulong burned his company's financial books. He then sold his private golf club memberships and disposed of his Mercedes S-600 sedan. And then he was gone. And just like that, China's biggest textile dye operation -- with four factories, a campus the size of 31 football fields, 4,000 workers and debts of at least $200 million -- was history. "We're pretty much dead now," said Mao Youming, one of 300 suppliers stiffed last month by Tao's company, Jianglong Group.

Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., the third-largest maker of recreational vehicles, said it was closing eight of its 24 plants because of reduced demand for travel trailers and factory-built housing. The company expects to cut about 760 jobs, or 13% of the 5,700 positions it had at the end of August, as production is consolidated at other facilities, said Kathy Munson, a Fleetwood spokeswoman.

On the chilly factory floor of the Republic Windows and Doors plant, Apolinar Cabrera and a couple hundred workers have decided to make their stand. Their jobs evaporated Friday when this Chicago company unexpectedly closed its doors, blaming lender Bank of America for cutting off its credit line and preventing it from paying the workers' severance and vacation. Cabrera and his co-workers have refused to leave.

Even after the troubles began at the mill, most of the families lingered, clinging to vague hope. As early autumn gave way to snow, they gathered up rumors, pinched pennies and drank a little more than usual. Their way of life was at risk.

Growing up in the Chinese countryside with only an elementary school education, Yang Yanjun had never heard of Christmas until she landed a job painting pink-cheeked cherubs to decorate trees. But Christmas proved to be a miraculous holiday that would utterly transform her life. Over a decade, she worked in factories producing ornaments and toys that foreign children were told came from Santa's workshops.

General Motors Corp. will cut more jobs this year as it closes plants and tries to wrench concessions from its major union in a crucial round of contract negotiations, Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said Friday. Wagoner also said GM would not concede its ranking as the world's No. 1 automaker to Toyota Motor Corp. this year without a "fight for every sale." GM, which lost $10.

More than 200 workers protested the closure of a factory that once made souvenirs for Walt Disney Co. in southern China, an official and a labor activist said. The factory, owned by Huangxing Light Manufacturing, closed Thursday in the city of Shenzhen, leaving 800 employees jobless and without compensation, said Vivian Yau, spokeswoman of Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, a Hong Kong-based labor group. Several workers were arrested but later released, Yau said.

Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., a Riverside-based recreational vehicle maker, will close the Rialto plant that rolled out its 100,000th travel trailer less than three years ago. The plant, opened in the early 1970s, will be the third to close as the manufacturer works to thin a unit that has lost $41.9 million this fiscal year. "We have not been profitable in the travel trailer division, consistently, for quite some time," said Kathy Munson, Fleetwood's director of investor relations.