Communist
9th March 2010, 19:39
.
Toyota workers raised safety concerns with bosses
in 2006 memo
The notice told of worries about employees and vehicles
over the automaker's push to trim costs and boost
production. (http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-toyota-canaries8-2010mar08,0,5602804.story)
By John M. Glionna
Los Angeles Times
March 8, 2010
Reporting from Toyota City, Japan - All six Toyota
veterans around the table agreed: The memo they were
about to send to senior management could damage their
careers.
The workers had recognized a troubling trend. In recent
years, the automaker had kicked into high gear to fill
the booming U.S. demand for smaller, more gas-efficient
vehicles.
The union men had watched the company take what they
believed were dangerous safety and manpower shortcuts
to lower costs and boost production.
Alienating bosses could make the men company pariahs.
But they knew they had to sound the alarm. From 2000 to
2005, their memo pointed out, Toyota had recalled more
than 5 million cars -- 36% of all sold vehicles, a rate
higher than other companies.
Toyota's failure to act, the two-page notice warned,
may "become a great problem that involves the company's
survival."
They added: "We are concerned about the processes which
are essential for producing safe cars, but that
ultimately may be ignored, with production continued in
the name of competition."
They presented the letter to management and held their
breath. But they needn't have worried. Toyota never
responded.
"They completely ignored us," recalled Tadao Wakatsuki,
62, a veteran assembly line worker who formed the
union. "That's the Toyota way."
Over the years, even before the recent worldwide
recalls, Toyota was warned about declining product
quality and worsening working conditions at its
Japanese plants.
The warnings came not only from Wakatsuki's union, but
from the widow of a 30-year-old Toyota worker who
dropped dead at his desk and from an auto industry
activist known as the Ralph Nader of Japan.
In 2008, the National Labor Committee, a U.S.
human-rights advocacy group, released a 65-page report
titled "The Toyota You Don't Know," detailing what it
alleged were serious human-rights violations.
The report linked Toyota to human trafficking and
sweatshop abuse in connection with its importing of
foreign guest workers from China and Vietnam to work in
its Japanese factories.
Many are pressured to work overtime without pay, the
report claimed, adding that there were signs similar
practices were emerging in the United States.
"Toyota is imposing its two-tier, low-wage model at its
nonunion plants in the south" of the U.S., the report
read, "which will result in wages and benefits being
slashed across the entire auto industry."
Toyota officials said they could not confirm they
received the memo but declined to comment further.
"Communication is the backbone of our labor-management
relations," company spokesman Paul Nolasco said in
Tokyo.
Assembly line worker Wakatsuki has seen what he calls
the deterioration in working conditions and product
quality.
In an interview, he listed a litany of concerns,
including outsourcing key design work and shortening
the trial-and- error period for new cars.
"We used to test every one of our cars for safety and
quality," said the rail-thin Wakatsuki, a 45-year
Toyota veteran. "Now we do maybe 60%. The old 100% is a
thing of the past."
Believing that Toyota's unions were too compliant with
management, Wakatsuki in 2006 formed the All Toyota
Labor Union, which opened its ranks to contract and
part-time workers ignored by the major labor group.
He created a website to publicize his views. Then, in
the fall of 2006, six founding members drafted a memo
warning Toyota about an impending disaster. After
consulting technicians around the company, they also
provided a detailed plan of action.
"Our responsibility as a labor union was to point out
these problems that Toyota should have known about.
People were overworked; some were committing suicide,"
he said. "Of course, Toyota did nothing, but looking
back we see how important this was. We just told them
what we saw."
Hiroko Uchino's complaint with Toyota wasn't over its
products. She believes its workplace environment killed
her husband.
In 2002, at age 30, the father of two collapsed at his
desk of sudden heart failure. It was 4:30 a.m. and
Kenichi Uchino had finished his assembly line shift
hours earlier. But as a team leader, he was responsible
for completing his paperwork on his own time.
The pattern had long concerned Uchino, who routinely
worked 14 hours a day. In his final month, his wife
says, he worked 144 hours of unpaid overtime, a common
practice known as "service to the company."
In 2007, a Japanese court ruled Uchino had died from
karoshi -- he had literally worked himself to death.
In an interview, Hiroko Uchino described the pain of
watching her husband's energy ebb, how he went right to
bed after work rather than play with his children or
wash and wax his precious van.
"He used to tell me 'I'm tired, I'm tired, but what can
I do? There's no way out.' He used to be such a happy
person. But in the end, he stopped smiling," she
recalled.
Two years ago, Uchino sneaked into a Toyota
stockholder's meeting to confront then-President
Katsuaki Watanabe.
During a Q&A session, she got her chance: Without
mentioning her husband by name, she challenged Watanabe
about unpaid overtime.
"He didn't have an answer," she said. "He just turned
to an underling and said they would look into it."
Nolasco said the company takes the death serious and
said Toyota was "committed to strengthening measures
meant to prevent work-related injury or harm" but did
not elaborate.
One of Toyota's most vocal critics is automobile
consumer advocate Fumio Matsuda, often called his
nation's Ralph Nader, who in 1970 formed the Japan
Automobile Consumer Union.
Now 84, the former Nissan quality control engineer has
spent decades monitoring Toyota and Japan's other
carmakers.
He calls Toyota's business practices the most secretive
of all.
In the past, he said, Toyota sponsored "secret
recalls," asking owners to visit dealers for vehicle
checkups, a ploy that allowed them to replace defective
parts and then charge the owner for the work.
"Everything Toyota does is hidden," he said.
Matsuda said he believed that Toyota also knew of
defects involved in the most recent recall long before
going public.
"I believe there will eventually be criminal charges,"
he said. "They knew there were problems with their
cars, but they didn't do anything until they were
pressured."
.
Copyright c 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Toyota workers raised safety concerns with bosses
in 2006 memo
The notice told of worries about employees and vehicles
over the automaker's push to trim costs and boost
production. (http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-toyota-canaries8-2010mar08,0,5602804.story)
By John M. Glionna
Los Angeles Times
March 8, 2010
Reporting from Toyota City, Japan - All six Toyota
veterans around the table agreed: The memo they were
about to send to senior management could damage their
careers.
The workers had recognized a troubling trend. In recent
years, the automaker had kicked into high gear to fill
the booming U.S. demand for smaller, more gas-efficient
vehicles.
The union men had watched the company take what they
believed were dangerous safety and manpower shortcuts
to lower costs and boost production.
Alienating bosses could make the men company pariahs.
But they knew they had to sound the alarm. From 2000 to
2005, their memo pointed out, Toyota had recalled more
than 5 million cars -- 36% of all sold vehicles, a rate
higher than other companies.
Toyota's failure to act, the two-page notice warned,
may "become a great problem that involves the company's
survival."
They added: "We are concerned about the processes which
are essential for producing safe cars, but that
ultimately may be ignored, with production continued in
the name of competition."
They presented the letter to management and held their
breath. But they needn't have worried. Toyota never
responded.
"They completely ignored us," recalled Tadao Wakatsuki,
62, a veteran assembly line worker who formed the
union. "That's the Toyota way."
Over the years, even before the recent worldwide
recalls, Toyota was warned about declining product
quality and worsening working conditions at its
Japanese plants.
The warnings came not only from Wakatsuki's union, but
from the widow of a 30-year-old Toyota worker who
dropped dead at his desk and from an auto industry
activist known as the Ralph Nader of Japan.
In 2008, the National Labor Committee, a U.S.
human-rights advocacy group, released a 65-page report
titled "The Toyota You Don't Know," detailing what it
alleged were serious human-rights violations.
The report linked Toyota to human trafficking and
sweatshop abuse in connection with its importing of
foreign guest workers from China and Vietnam to work in
its Japanese factories.
Many are pressured to work overtime without pay, the
report claimed, adding that there were signs similar
practices were emerging in the United States.
"Toyota is imposing its two-tier, low-wage model at its
nonunion plants in the south" of the U.S., the report
read, "which will result in wages and benefits being
slashed across the entire auto industry."
Toyota officials said they could not confirm they
received the memo but declined to comment further.
"Communication is the backbone of our labor-management
relations," company spokesman Paul Nolasco said in
Tokyo.
Assembly line worker Wakatsuki has seen what he calls
the deterioration in working conditions and product
quality.
In an interview, he listed a litany of concerns,
including outsourcing key design work and shortening
the trial-and- error period for new cars.
"We used to test every one of our cars for safety and
quality," said the rail-thin Wakatsuki, a 45-year
Toyota veteran. "Now we do maybe 60%. The old 100% is a
thing of the past."
Believing that Toyota's unions were too compliant with
management, Wakatsuki in 2006 formed the All Toyota
Labor Union, which opened its ranks to contract and
part-time workers ignored by the major labor group.
He created a website to publicize his views. Then, in
the fall of 2006, six founding members drafted a memo
warning Toyota about an impending disaster. After
consulting technicians around the company, they also
provided a detailed plan of action.
"Our responsibility as a labor union was to point out
these problems that Toyota should have known about.
People were overworked; some were committing suicide,"
he said. "Of course, Toyota did nothing, but looking
back we see how important this was. We just told them
what we saw."
Hiroko Uchino's complaint with Toyota wasn't over its
products. She believes its workplace environment killed
her husband.
In 2002, at age 30, the father of two collapsed at his
desk of sudden heart failure. It was 4:30 a.m. and
Kenichi Uchino had finished his assembly line shift
hours earlier. But as a team leader, he was responsible
for completing his paperwork on his own time.
The pattern had long concerned Uchino, who routinely
worked 14 hours a day. In his final month, his wife
says, he worked 144 hours of unpaid overtime, a common
practice known as "service to the company."
In 2007, a Japanese court ruled Uchino had died from
karoshi -- he had literally worked himself to death.
In an interview, Hiroko Uchino described the pain of
watching her husband's energy ebb, how he went right to
bed after work rather than play with his children or
wash and wax his precious van.
"He used to tell me 'I'm tired, I'm tired, but what can
I do? There's no way out.' He used to be such a happy
person. But in the end, he stopped smiling," she
recalled.
Two years ago, Uchino sneaked into a Toyota
stockholder's meeting to confront then-President
Katsuaki Watanabe.
During a Q&A session, she got her chance: Without
mentioning her husband by name, she challenged Watanabe
about unpaid overtime.
"He didn't have an answer," she said. "He just turned
to an underling and said they would look into it."
Nolasco said the company takes the death serious and
said Toyota was "committed to strengthening measures
meant to prevent work-related injury or harm" but did
not elaborate.
One of Toyota's most vocal critics is automobile
consumer advocate Fumio Matsuda, often called his
nation's Ralph Nader, who in 1970 formed the Japan
Automobile Consumer Union.
Now 84, the former Nissan quality control engineer has
spent decades monitoring Toyota and Japan's other
carmakers.
He calls Toyota's business practices the most secretive
of all.
In the past, he said, Toyota sponsored "secret
recalls," asking owners to visit dealers for vehicle
checkups, a ploy that allowed them to replace defective
parts and then charge the owner for the work.
"Everything Toyota does is hidden," he said.
Matsuda said he believed that Toyota also knew of
defects involved in the most recent recall long before
going public.
"I believe there will eventually be criminal charges,"
he said. "They knew there were problems with their
cars, but they didn't do anything until they were
pressured."
.
Copyright c 2010, The Los Angeles Times