• Union Meeting is Wednesday, June 16 at 3 pm and 15 minutes after the longest first shift line time.
• From the USA Today: Toyota paid a record fine recently for dragging its feet on disclosing a safety defect blamed for potentially fatal unintended acceleration. Now, documents have come to light in a California lawsuit that point to possible delays involving an earlier safety issue, one that could result in loss of steering control. Records of Toyota warranty repairs and customer complaints that are part of the lawsuit show that the car company was dealing with cracking and breaking steering relay rods in the U.S. for at least 11 years before it recalled 330,000 pickups and SUVs in Japanto replace the rods — and 12 years before its 2005 recall of nearly a million similar trucks in the U.S. for the problem.
• How far have pickup sales fallen? The Detroit News reports: Pickup sales peaked at 2.5 million in 2004, when the housing boom was in full swing and home builders couldn't get enough of them. Neither could families, who took advantage of cheap gas and easy credit by buying fully appointed trucks with leather interiors and spacious cabs. Four years later, the economy was teetering, and gas topped $4 a gallon. Pickup sales plunged. They fell further when the financial crisis stuck, credit markets froze and construction work dried up. In 2009, automakers sold 1.1 million trucks, the lowest level in 18 years. This year, pickup sales have been gaining momentum. Through May, Americans bought 11 percent more than they did in the first five months of last year and the sales pace has been accelerating.
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