Toyota Australia today issued a statement to deny a story in my old employer, The Australian Financial Review, which said that the company blamed car unions for the decision to end manufacturing.
The full text of the Toyota statement is here:
Toyota Australia denies the allegations in today’s front page Australian Financial Review story, ‘Toyota blamed union’.
Toyota Australia has never blamed the union for its decision to close its manufacturing operations by the end of 2017, neither publicly or in private discussions with any stakeholders.
As stated at the time of the announcement, there is no single reason that led to this decision.
The market and economic factors contributing to the decision include the unfavourable Australian dollar that makes exports unviable, high costs of manufacturing and low economies of scale for our vehicle production and local supplier base.
Together with one of the most open and fragmented automotive markets in the world and increased competitiveness due to current and future Free Trade Agreements, it is not viable to continue building cars in Australia.
The company will not be making any further comments on this issue.
Notwithstanding the above statement, Toyota Australia and its president Max Yasuda have been frustrated in recent years in their attempts to overhaul work practices at their Altona plant.
For example, a small group of employees, which included some AMWU shop stewards, took Federal court action to gain an injunction which prevented Toyota management from seeking workforce approval for a package of changes to cut costs and improve productivity.
The changes would not have cut base pay but would have reduced the Christmas break, delivered more rostering flexibility and the like.
On the other hand, Toyota had angered the AMWU shop floor by the manner of hundreds of forced redundancies a few years ago. And management refused to negotiate the changes with the full cast of delegates who were usually involved in enterprise bargaining.
Toyota Australia had argued that it needed to cut the cost of each car it made by $3800 in order to compete with other Toyota plants, especially in a new factory in Kentucky which is less influenced than the traditional mid-West strongholds of the United Auto Workers.
Toyota makes a coded reference to workplace matters in its statement when it refers to the high cost of manufacturing in Australia, so it is being a bit coy.
The outcome of a vote of Toyota’s 2500 manufacturing workers is now only conjectural. But it is likely that it would have been passed by a majority of workers if they realised it was a referendum on whether they wanted to keep their job.
The Abbott government, led by Treasurer Joe Hockey, now appears to be putting most of the blame on unions and the Toyota workers. Max Yasuda says otherwise. Why is it so hard to argue that the reasons for the Toyota decision were complex? Did the workers have any influence on the Australian dollar, the content of free trade agreements and changing consumer preference?
But here’s a question – Tony Abbott telephoned Yasuda-san briefly in the wake of Holden’s decision in December that it would shut its assembly plant in Adelaide.
After that phone call, did the PM ever have a serious discussion with Toyota regarding its future in Australia ?
Mark Skulley 