Toyota workers are changing their minds
Published in the September 23 issue of the Japan Press Weekly
Workers at Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's top car maker notorious for its "just-in-time" system, are pulling away from their allegiance to the company. Akahata on September 19 reported this based on a reporter's continual coverage which began in September 1990.
The company has a 40 percent share in the domestic car market and has been the top net profit earner for 11 straight years. It ranks third in world car production. A rapid increase in its production abroad has caused a decline in domestic production. The number of workers shrank by about 7,000 in the 7 years since 1992 to the present 68,000.
In the Takaoka plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture with 5,000 workers, a car is finished every 58 seconds on the assembly line. Production is based on two-shift, and the workers are made to work overtime as a stopgap between shifts. From last year to this spring, workers used to do 2-hours overtime. The 1999 abolition of protective clauses in the labor law for women workers caused women to work late hours.
For the production of a particular type of car in great demand, the company would change work schedules to meet the demand. This is an application of "just-in-time" to workers.
A 21-year-old male worker who worked for 6 months as a seasonal worker in 1991 told Akahata: "In just 50 seconds I had to go through four processes inside a car body on the assembly line. I needed acrobatic skills." When he was worn down and taken ill, he quit the company. In the Takaoka plant, there were 11 deaths on the job in 1998 and 1999.
At that time, a leader of a German metal workers union fiercely criticized the "just-in-time" system as a system completely lacking buffer time indispensable for human beings.
In the last 10 years more robots were introduced in production. However, they did not benefit workers.
Clearly, workers are exhausted, but their opinion about politics, society, and the workplace are greatly changing.
Publicity campaigns which the Japanese Communist Party Toyota Motor Committee carried out in front of the factories, dormitories, and amusement centers near the stations have come to be favorably received. The JCP call for a change to end government-encouraged worker dismissals by large corporations and company reluctance to hire new graduates is winning support, particularly from young workers. They show their keen interest in the JCP call for legal regulation on dismissals (like those in European countries) for a ban on unpaid overtime, and shorter working hours.
Yoshiatsu Sato, JCP Toyota Motor Committee chair said: "I remember that during the national elections in the 1970s and the 1980s the company had the gate to employees' apartments closed to shut out JCP leaflets. In the company's dormitories an all-night vigil with a bonfire was kept to keep leaflets from being distributed. This, until the early 1990s created an atmosphere in which people were discouraged to open the door of their apartments to visiting JCP members. Now people open their doors wide to JCP visitors and willingly receive leaflets. A worker's wife said that she wants the JCP to help improve the workplace environment in which her husband has to come home at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m."
At Toyota Motor Corp., a symbol of Japan's capitalism without rules, an increasing number of young workers are no longer bound by false allegiance to the company or by anti-communism. (end)
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