This week, while I was returning from a trip to the Bay Area in California, I couldn’t help but bemoan local news reports that Toyota was closing its sole unionized facility in the country. The factory was a Toyota and GM joint venture that opened in 1984 as an experiment for Toyota to make automobiles in the US and for GM to acquire more effective procedures from Japan. California state officials estimate that the ripple effect will cost the state 40,000 jobs overall. 4,700 employees will lose their employment at the facility in Fremont, CA.
On multiple levels, I find Toyota’s decision to be wholly unfair and unwarranted. The hottest item was the Corolla, ironically built at this Fremont plant, and Toyota even had to bring more workers in to keep up with demand generated by this program. First, the carmaker has made out royally in the last few months, selling more cars than any other manufacturer through the U.S. taxpayer-subsidized “cash for clunkers program.” So here we have American auto workerswho happen to be unionized working overtime to crank out cars so this Japanese car maker can.
Second, Toyota is closing the only facility it has that is unionized, thus this is an effort to save money at the expense of the workers. The firm actually runs plants in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, and West Virginia, none of which are being shut down. The UAW has failed in its attempts to unionize Toyota in these additional states.
Although they “truly regret” having to take this decision, a spokeswoman for Toyota in North America stated that “over the mid-to long term, it would not be economically sustainable to retain the factory.” So, shut down the union plant because the pay and perks are marginally higher. That is awful. I couldn’t agree more with UAW President Ron Gettelfinger when he said that the plant’s Toyota employees “deserve better than to be abandoned by this firm, which has gained so greatly from their labor, their productivity, and their commitment to quality.”
In This Article...
Do Toyota employees belong to unions?
One of the largest labor unions of the corporation is the Toyota Motor Workers’ Union, which has 63,000 members. The union holds its yearly rally in the spring, when the majority of Japanese businesses engage labor discussions, with about 3,000 members often attending, according to Nakamaru.
Why doesn’t Toyota have a union?
Toyota has managed to prevent unionization in part by locating its manufacturing facilities in rural locations where the workforce is appreciative of their jobs and is not used to unions. In the impoverished city of Tupelo, Mississippi, Toyota will soon open a new facility.
According to William Maloney of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Labor Education and Research, “Toyota has followed a grand strategy of settling in smaller southern towns without a history of organizing. Many of the workers feel that they’ve got a very nice deal in terms of pay and benefits, and they’re unsure of what the benefits would be to unionize.
James, a Toyota employee, expressed it more plainly. Eastern Kentucky workers came from “nothing,” and they are too appreciative and afraid to complain about their unfavorable working conditions.
There are hundreds more out there, James added, so Toyota can replace them. “And Toyota is aware of this, so they advise us to go because McDonald’s is hiring if we don’t like it.
The current four-year contract between the UAW and the Detroit manufacturers expires in September, and a summer of heated negotiations will be coming to a close, according to anti-union worker Howard. At that time, Toyota will likely announce modifications to its pay and benefits package.
“At the moment, in my opinion, the union campaigners are exhausted,” Howard stated. If this fall’s wage announcement is favorable, I believe their campaign is doomed; yet, if enough team members find it to be unfavorable, they may receive greater support.
Does Toyota America have a union?
In the US and Canada, there are two distinct auto industries: one is unionized at Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, NUMMI, and Mitsubishi. Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and a few more more recent entrants make up the non-union industry.
Toyotas are union-built, right?
Not all automobiles made in the US or Canada are constructed by workers who are members of unions. The UAW makes the Toyota Corolla in the United States, for instance, while the Canadian model is produced in a non-union facility, and other vehicles are imported from another nation.
How are Toyota’s employees treated?
As a result, Toyota makes significant investments in its employees and organizational capacity and collects ideas from everyone and anywhere, including the shop floor, the office, and the field. Toyota sees its personnel as knowledge workers who amass chiethe wisdom of experience on the company’s front lines, not merely as pairs of hands.
Do Toyota employees in Japan belong to a union?
The Federation of All Toyota Workers’ Unions: What Is It? The federation was established in 1972 and now has 314 affiliated unions with around 357,000 members who work in sales and production. It makes up a sizable portion of the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions, which has approximately 792,000 members.
Tesla has a union?
There is now no labor union representation at any of Musk’s Tesla (or SpaceX) operations in California, Nevada, New York, or Texas, a subtle but significant distinction from the UAW, which plundered millions from workers.
Ford employs a union?
Ford Motor Company and the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) sign their first contract on June 20, 1941, following Henry Ford’s protracted and acrimonious opposition to collaboration with organized labor unions.
The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act after one of its authors, Senator Robert Wagner of New York, established workers’ rights to collective bargaining and made an effort to control unfair practices by employers, employees, and unions, and was passed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s allies in Congress in 1935. Ford was the lone holdout against the unionization of the auto industry by 1937 after successful sit-down strikes (during which the employees remained inside the factory to prevent strikebreakers from entering). By this time, General Motors and Chrysler had struck agreements with the nascent UAW.
The Wagner Act had made unionization inevitable, and Ford Motor Company President Edsel Ford tried to convince his father of this. Instead of relying on labor unions, the elder Ford, who detested them, put his faith in Harry Bennett, the chief of Ford’s Service Department, who vowed to keep the unions at bay. Ford Motor Company was found guilty of violating the Wagner Act following the well-known “Battle of the Overpass” on May 26, 1937, in which Ford henchmen brutally beat several UAW organizers (including Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen) who were trying to distribute leaflets at Ford’s River Rouge plant. In the wake of this incident, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Ford to stop interfering with the union’s attempts to organize in early 1941.
Although Henry Ford had threatened to shut down his plants rather than sign with the UAW-CIO, he changed his position and signed a contract with the union that June 20. The strike inflamed racial tensions as many African-American Ford employees returned to work before their white coworkers, breaking it.
Ironically, Ford offered its employees more lenient terms than either GM or Chrysler had: The business agreed to match the top wage rates in the sector and deduct union dues from employees’ paychecks in addition to giving back earnings to more than 4,000 workers who had been unlawfully terminated.
Kia has a union?
For the first time in ten years, Kia Corp. and its labor union inked a salary deal for 2021 on Monday without an industrial action taking place.
On Friday, 26,945 Kia employees cast their votes for or against wage proposals that included a baseline monthly pay raise of 75,000 won ($64.30), two months of performance-based compensation, and 5.8 million won in cash bonuses. Out of the 28,604 union members, more than 1,600 abstained.
However, the business turned down the union’s proposal that fired employees be given their jobs back and that the retirement age be raised from 60 to 65.
The last time a pay agreement between Kia and its union was agreed without a strike was in 2011.
Sales increased by 22% from January to July to 1.69 million automobiles from 1.39 million during the same period in 2017.
In an effort to increase sales, Kia said it would introduce the K8 sedan and the fully electric EV6 that is built on the EV platform developed by the Hyundai Motor Group in global markets in Europe and the US later this year.
The company that makes the Telluride SUV and the K5 sedan debuted the EV6 in the domestic market at the beginning of this month.
The union and its larger affiliate, Hyundai Motor Co., agreed to a salary agreement last month, preventing a walkout for the third year in a row.
Is there a union for Honda?
Vehicles made by Honda, Toyota, and a number of other foreign manufacturers are produced in American plants that do not employ union labor.
We urge Congress to remove discriminatory language tying unionization to incentives from its budget reconciliation proposal, Honda said in a statement. “If Congress is serious about addressing the climate crisis, as well as its goal to see these vehicles built in America, it should treat all EVs made by U.S. auto workers fairly and equally.”
Hyundai employees are they unionized?
Hyundai Motor Co.’s management and its unionized employees tentatively agreed on a salary agreement on Tuesday, preventing a fourth consecutive year of labor unrest.
During their 16th round of negotiations, held in Ulsan, about 310 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the two parties reached agreements on a number of items, including an increase in basic monthly pay of 98,000 won ($74.80), the building of a new electric vehicle (EV) factory in South Korea, and more new hires.
The two parties came to a pay agreement without a labor strike for the fourth year in a row.
When unionized workers decide to approve the proposal in a vote slated for next Tuesday, the agreement will be finalized.
As per the agreement, Hyundai would start building an EV factory the next year with a target start date of 2025.
Hyundai has not established a car plant in South Korea since it did so in 1996, when it did so in Asan, 87 kilometers south of Seoul.
Offering a bonus equal to 200 percent of a worker’s monthly wage plus 4 million won and 20 Hyundai Motor shares per person was also agreed upon during the agreement on Tuesday.
The company will also revamp production facilities and gradually renovate outdated domestic factories to increase productivity and enhance working conditions.
Building Hyundai’s first EV factory in South Korea “will enable us respond to global EV demand more proactively, along with the plan announced in May to develop an electric vehicle manufacturing in Georgia, the United States,” the firm said in a news release.
Hyundai announced that it would increase the number of experienced engineers and production staff in addition to the capacity expansion plan. The corporation stated that the specifics would be ironed out before the end of November.
The deal was reached as a result of a global chip shortage, which caused Hyundai Motor’s sales to decline 7.6 percent to 1,877,193 units in the first half of this year from 2,031,185 units during the same period last year.
The largest automaker in the nation was plagued by strikes for many years. Despite a trade disagreement with Japan in 2019 and the COVID-19 epidemic from 2020 to 2021, Hyundai and the union were able to come to pay agreements without any strikes over the past four years.
Due to the epidemic, the employer and its union decided on a salary freeze in 2020. Following the Asian financial crisis in 1998 and the global financial crisis in 2009, it was the first wage freeze in 11 years.
Management and labor came to terms with an increase in basic monthly compensation of 75,000 won, a bonus of 200 percent of a worker’s monthly income plus 3.5 million won, 2.3 million won in performance-based benefits, and five Hyundai shares per employee last year. However, it turned down the union’s request to raise the retirement age to 64 and bring back the sacked employees.