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The Dark Side of the Toyota Prius
Wednesday 16 July 2008
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by: Paul Abowd, In These Times
A
worker installs the battery of a Toyota Prius. A New York-based human
rights group has released a report alleging that Toyota exploits guest
workers, mostly shipped in from China and Vietnam.
(Photo: corolland)
The
National Labor Committee (NLC), a New York-based human rights group,
has been investigating working conditions at Toyota Motor Corp., and
the labor used to produce its best-selling Prius hybrid cars.
In
its 65-page report released in June, NLC includes first-hand testimony
of factory conditions in 'Toyota City,' outside of Nagoya, Japan - less
than 200 miles southwest of Tokyo - where the largest auto company in
the world employs some 70,000 people.
The report alleges that
Toyota exploits guest workers, mostly shipped in from China and
Vietnam. According to the NLC, these workers are 'stripped of their
passports and often forced to work - including at subcontract plants
supplying Toyota - 16 hours a day, seven days a week, while being paid
less than half the legal minimum wage.' Workers are forced to live in
company dormitories and deported for complaining about poor treatment,
the report finds.
Low-wage
temporary workers make up one-third of Toyota's Prius assembly-line
workers, mostly in the auto-parts supply chain. They are signed to
contracts for periods as short as four months, and are paid only 60
percent of a full-time employee's wage.
Parts plants run by
subcontractors advertise standard, nine-hour, five-day-a-week jobs. But
according to the NLC, 'the typical shift was 15 to 16.5 hours a day,
from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. or 1:00 a.m.'
In 2002, Kenichi
Uchino, 30, died while working at the 'green' Tsutsumi plant that
assembles the Prius. During the 13th hour of a routine 14-hour day,
Uchino collapsed on the shop floor of the internationally lauded
'sustainable' factory, which uses sulfur-oxide-
eating
paint and boasts 5 percent emissions reductions. A Japanese court ruled
that Uchino's death was caused by exhaustion from overwork.
His
wife, Hiroko Uchino, described a grueling lifestyle that included an
85-hour workweek prior to his death. The NLC published his time cards,
which reveal that he was 'putting in 106.5 to 155 hours of overtime ...
in the 30 days leading up to his death.'
Much of this overtime
went unpaid. (Toyota explained Kenichi's extra hours as 'voluntary
quality control activities,' says the report.) But in court, his
survivors were able to win pension payments.
The NLC also
alleges that Toyota - through its subsidiary Toyota Tsusho - has joint
business ventures with Burma's military regime. The charges arise from
an agreement between Tsusho, Suzuki and the junta to set up parts and
material plants in Burma, and produce vehicles for the military
government. These ties remain despite a 2001 declaration from the
company that it ended contracts with the Burmese government.
In
the wake of the report, the company wrote a letter to stockholders:
'Toyota has carefully considered the current environment in Burma, has
conveyed to Toyota Tsusho Corporation its concerns about that
environment, and has asked Toyota Tsusho to reconsider its business
activities in the country.' As the largest owner of Tsusho's stock
(more than a third), Toyota itself has a role to play in cutting these
ties.
The NLC report also connects the company's overseas
misdeeds to the American economy. Millions of dollars in car parts
shipped by Toyota Tsusho are received by Tsusho America, which
distributes them to Toyota assembly plants in the American South. This
influx of foreign auto infrastructure uses an overwhelming ratio of
non-union labor, fueling the diminution of union density in the auto
sector.
What's more, a memo leaked from Toyota's Georgetown, Ky., plant to the New York Times in late 2007, exposed 'management's
plans to cut $300 million in labor costs across Toyota's North American
operations over the next three years.' To do this, Toyota plans to
introduce tiered wage scales and reduced health benefits for U.S.
Toyota workers, which should come as little surprise to an American
auto workforce that has suffered similar attacks from Detroit's Big
Three manufacturers for the past three decades.
As NLC Director
Charles Kernaghan says, if Hollywood celebrities - such as actors
Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz - can popularize green driving, they
can also help end Toyota's sweatshop labor regime and its ties to
Burma's dictatorship.
Says Kernaghan: 'We hope that these same
celebrities will now also challenge Toyota to improve its respect for
human and worker rights.'
-------- Paul Abowd lives in
Detroit, where he writes for Labor Notes. His work has appeared in Z
Magazine, Monthly Review WebZine, and The Electronic Intifada.
https://www.truthout.org/article/the-dark-side-toyota-prius
paint and boasts 5 percent emissions reductions. A Japanese court ruled
that Uchino's death was caused by exhaustion from overwork.
His
wife, Hiroko Uchino, described a grueling lifestyle that included an
85-hour workweek prior to his death. The NLC published his time cards,
which reveal that he was 'putting in 106.5 to 155 hours of overtime ...
in the 30 days leading up to his death.'
Much of this overtime
went unpaid. (Toyota explained Kenichi's extra hours as 'voluntary
quality control activities,' says the report.) But in court, his
survivors were able to win pension payments.
The NLC also
alleges that Toyota - through its subsidiary Toyota Tsusho - has joint
business ventures with Burma's military regime. The charges arise from
an agreement between Tsusho, Suzuki and the junta to set up parts and
material plants in Burma, and produce vehicles for the military
government. These ties remain despite a 2001 declaration from the
company that it ended contracts with the Burmese government.
In
the wake of the report, the company wrote a letter to stockholders:
'Toyota has carefully considered the current environment in Burma, has
conveyed to Toyota Tsusho Corporation its concerns about that
environment, and has asked Toyota Tsusho to reconsider its business
activities in the country.' As the largest owner of Tsusho's stock
(more than a third), Toyota itself has a role to play in cutting these
ties.
The NLC report also connects the company's overseas
misdeeds to the American economy. Millions of dollars in car parts
shipped by Toyota Tsusho are received by Tsusho America, which
distributes them to Toyota assembly plants in the American South. This
influx of foreign auto infrastructure uses an overwhelming ratio of
non-union labor, fueling the diminution of union density in the auto
sector.
What's more, a memo leaked from Toyota's Georgetown, Ky., plant to the New York Times in late 2007, exposed 'management's
plans to cut $300 million in labor costs across Toyota's North American
operations over the next three years.' To do this, Toyota plans to
introduce tiered wage scales and reduced health benefits for U.S.
Toyota workers, which should come as little surprise to an American
auto workforce that has suffered similar attacks from Detroit's Big
Three manufacturers for the past three decades.
As NLC Director
Charles Kernaghan says, if Hollywood celebrities - such as actors
Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz - can popularize green driving, they
can also help end Toyota's sweatshop labor regime and its ties to
Burma's dictatorship.
Says Kernaghan: 'We hope that these same
celebrities will now also challenge Toyota to improve its respect for
human and worker rights.'
-------- Paul Abowd lives in
Detroit, where he writes for Labor Notes. His work has appeared in Z
Magazine, Monthly Review WebZine, and The Electronic Intifada.
https://www.truthout.org/article/the-dark-side-toyota-prius
