The whole “shipping good jobs overseas…” argument is really wearing thin. I concur with Bob that such moves are usually survival rather than greed.

On a related topic, people rarely talk about the number of “overseas” jobs that have come to the United States. The second generation (2007 onward) Tacoma Tundra was initially assembled at two different United States locations; the original plant was in Princeton, Indiana until such time as a new, very modern plant was built in San Antonio, Texas. Toyota also brought all of their key Tundra suppliers to Texas and had them build on the same site to mitigate the logistical issues. In addition, Toyota built a $9 million dollar health care facility to serve workers and their dependents. To date, Toyota has invested $2.1 billion (yes – billion with a “B”) in this plant.

In 2011, there were 82,908 Tundra and 110,705 Tacoma truck built at this plant. Average salary for “production Team” is $54K plus benefits per year. Not bad in San Antonio.

Granted, the net profit goes back to the “land of the rising sun”, but the 2,300 non-union people (Toyota shuttered it’s only union plant in San Francisco in 2009) who work for Toyota are probably okay with that.

The near-by Arlington Texas GM SUV plant which employs approximately 2,400 workers, who are UAW Local 276 members, cannot compete with Toyota because on average, GM costs are a staggering $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to their hourly workers, and to cover pension and retiree medical costs. At that rate, labor costs per vehicle at Arlington are about $1,800

Toyota’s non-union labor has a total hourly cost, with benefits, of about $35-40 an hour -- less than half of GM's rates – primarily because the Toyota plant won't have any direct retiree costs for years so even if Toyota only matches the Arlington GM plant in productivity, there is a labor cost advantage of about $1,000 per vehicle. I see a lot of Tundras in my neck of the woods and they seem to be a pretty solid rig – and they’re built with American labor in San Antonio, Texas.

There are similar stories with Nissan, Honda, BMW, etc… Maybe the Japanese (and Germans) should bellyache about their jobs going overseas??

Just saying