Toyota Linked to Human Trafficking and Worker Abuse?

[TooFolkGR]

OK so I just read this article.

Here are the important bits:

* Toyota linked to human trafficking and sweatshop abuse: Toyota's much
admired "Just in Time" auto parts supply chain is riddled with sweatshop
abuse, including the trafficking of foreign guest workers, mostly from
China and Vietnam to Japan, who 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. Guest workers who complain about abusive conditions are deported.

* Prius made by low-wage temps: Fully one-third--10,000--of all Toyota
assembly line workers in Japan are low-wage temps who have few rights and
earn less than 60% of what full time workers do.

* Unpaid overtime and "overworked" to death: Mr. Kenichi Uchino was
just 30 years old when he died of overwork on an assembly line at Toyota's
Prius plant, leaving behind his young wife and two children. Mr. Uchino
routinely worked 13 to 14 hours a day, putting in 106 1/2 to 155 hours of
overtime--depending on whether work taken home was counted--in the 30 days
leading up to his death. Toyota claimed that he had only worked 45 hours of
overtime and that the other 61 1/2 to 110 hours were "voluntary" and
unpaid. His wife had to go to court -- which ruled that Mr. Uchino was
overworked to death -- to win a pension for their children.

The way I read that first bullet, the actual sweatshop and human trafficking isn't happening AT Toyota, but with Toyota parts suppliers. I think Toyota should discourage this and/or seek alternate suppliers but is that likely?

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do we think this article (and the report it's based on) are credible?

The second point about the temp workers is also worrying, but they sort of go out of their way NOT to say how much money the people are actually making. I'd be OK with it if the temps were still making a living wage and as I said, I'm suspicious because wage information is omitted.

The guy who overworked himself to death... I don't blame "Toyota" for that either. Unfortunately (IMO anyway) for the Japanese, they've got this coming at them from both sides of their culture. They aren't working fourteen hour days and going home and thinking, "I sure could use a vacation from these fourteen hour days." They're thinking, "If I could sleep for six hours, I could work a sixteen hour day.

I'm not trying to be culturally insensitive, I'm just saying what my understanding of their culture is. The more they work, the more honorable they are.

What are anyone else's thoughts? Is there legitimate concern here?

I LOVE my 2007 Prius, but when I go to upgrade whenever the wheels fall off, I would have serious misgivings about selecting a Toyota if I really believed SLAVES were making some of the parts.

[PriusSport]

Could be politically motivated. You can't judge labor practices in foreign countries vs the standards here.

[TooFolkGR]

Originally Posted by PriusSport

Could be politically motivated. You can't judge labor practices in foreign countries vs the standards here.

I agree one hundred percent. But I draw the line at the bit about some of their suppliers using actual slave labor. The part about temps and working fourteen hours a day I take with a grain of salt.

But if people are being kidnapped and then SOLD to Toyota suppliers and Toyota has a reasonable suspicion that it's happening, I don't think it's an unfair imposition of our standards to say they should at the very least investigate and find a new widget supplier if it's true.

[chogan2]

The issuers of the report appear to be an organization genuinely interested in workers rights, and working against slavery or near-slavery conditions in international trade. They are the same people who embarrassed Kathy Lee Gifford by exposing the sweatshop manufacture of her line of clothing. They are not listed in SourceWatch, a site that tracks funding for mouthpiece organizations. But neither are they listed in charitynavigator.org, a good site for checking the credentials of charitable organizations. My first take on this is that it's a legitimate concern. My second take is that, probably, given that most manufacture is in low-wage countries, you'd expose at least some of the same thing no matter which car maker you chose. Although perhaps not the link to the Burmese (sic) dictatorship.

It's clear from the press release that they chose Toyota because of the Prius -- they call on the same stars that promoted the Prius for green reasons now to come out for cleaning up sweatshop and slave labor conditions in international trade. It's not clear to me at this point that Toyota is noticeable worse than others, just that Toyota was chosen for the Prius hook. Arguably, it's the same strategy as exposing Gifford's sweatshop workers instead of everybody else's sweatshop workers. Point a finger at any imported goods from that part of the world and it's pretty good odds there is at least some subsistence wage work behind the low price. No magic there.

The report itself is ... too much a collection of anecdotes for me to take in all at once. I mean, it's hard to do a systematic evaluation of a manufacturer for these issues, but there are a lot of vignettes of particular abuses.

The "link to human trafficking" part, for example, describes the overall conditions of Chinese guestworkers in Japan, along with their number. And notes that several (23) Totota parts suppliers were cited for violations of the laws regarding pay and treatment for guest workers. So they do appear to have some facts on the table. It's not clear whether the abuses cited in general, for guest workers, are the same magnitude as the abuses by the Totota parts suppliers in particular. But they do a pretty good job of tarring them all with the same brush.

After skimming the report, my take is still pretty much the same. This is the way the world works now. They could choose almost any manufacturer, turn over some Asian manufacturing rocks and see what crawled out. Toyota was chosen for impact. And possibly because Toyota might plausibly do something about it to maintain a good image in the US and elsewhere.

[patsparks]

I'd need to see this from more than an American union article where most unionised workers in the automotive industry work for the big 3.

I'm not knocking unions, I am a unionist.

[Sheepdog]

I would want investigation by a third party without an ax to grind. This American union is getting it's lunch eaten by Toyota because the American big 3 are making SUV's and cars with lousy economy. They probably see Toyota as the enemy who is taking jobs away and indeed Ford and others are dropping jobs and closing plants. But this is not because of Toyota- this is because American car makers are making big fast gas eaters that are now too expensive for most to own.

Toyota spent a lot of money for a long time to get this Hybrid technology running. They deserve the rewards now.

As for sweat shops? A lot of US car parts are made in Mexico now. Wanna guess what kind of labor practices are doing that work? It's no different.

[ZC1]

The union article is making statements based on what??
Where are the dates/times/names/places and other factual information from which such truthful statements come?

It's one thing to make broad statements, it's another to back them up with undeniable facts. Is Mr. Uchino's death prevalent among Toyota's workers? Was Mr. Uchino severly dehydrated or did his boss flog him to death?

I'd like to know the location of the secret stash of private information that the Union dips into to get these conclusions. If it's for real, Mr. Uchino's case notwithstanding, then let loose the floodgate of information and let the chips fall where they may.

ZC1

[sendconroymail]

I'm really against this sweat shop crap. I think they ought to hire assembly line workers with a third grade education. They should give them $80k per year, great medical benefits, and give them a huge pension and medical benefits when they retire. While working they should not be asked to work hard and should be able to take breaks whenever desired. They should not be able to get fired and if they are a real bad worker you should be forced to give them a few years salary and some great benefits to send them out the door. Ohh wait a minute the big three already does than for their workers. Never mind.

[chogan2]

I've read the report a little more closely now. It's not well written. There are some facts and citations as to source, but mostly its case studies and vignettes. With a lot of repetition. They definitely did some homework, but ... it's hard to say whether Toyota is qualitatively different from any other Japanese car maker (or manufacturer) in this regard. Interesting to see that the Japanese appear to be stressing out/killing off their middle class as fast as we are here. Beyond that it's hard to make any judgment based on this advocacy piece. Other than, as I said earlier, this is the way the world works these days.

[JimN]

MSNBC has documented slave labor & other abuses in the US and a few other countries. One can not apply American standards worldwide. In many other countries there is no minimum wage, no paid vacation, no workmans comp, no unemployment insurance. Nike makes shoes in Vietnam because it is legal to pay children next to nothing (in US$) to do so. Mexicans pour into the USA because they are paid more to pick crops here compared to wages in Mexico. Union Carbide built a chemical plant upwind of a poor Indian village because there weren't any environmental restrictions there. Walmart gets busted for labor law violations and just pays the fine because it is cheaper than compliance. Corporations exploit workers and for the most part the workers tolerate it.

I believe this organization's assertions are plausible.