Until about three weeks ago, workers built pickups by the thousands here at the sprawling Toyota truck factory south of town. No longer. Now, about 2,000 permanent employees draw a paycheck from a plant that doesn't produce anything. They perform maintenance, talk about ways to improve quality, and relearn tasks as basic as the best way to drive a bolt.
They're luckier than the plant's 200 temporary workers who work as needed and an army of employees at its parts suppliers, who have been furloughed.