oyota Linked to Human Trafficking and Sweatshop Abuses
Toyota May Be a Shade Greener Environmentally but has badly stumbled with Human Rights Abuses
NEW YORK, June 18 -- Today the National Labor Committee (NLC) is releasing a 65-page report, "The Toyota You Don't Know" documenting serious human rights violations by the Toyota Motor Company, which will disturb most Americans.
"Celebrities like Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pit, Bill Maher and others have led the way in turning Toyota's Prius into a symbol of concern for our environment," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the NLC, "We hope that these same celebrities will now also challenge Toyota to improve its respect for human and worker rights. As a start, Toyota should cut its ties to the Burmese dictators and end the exploitation of foreign guest workers trafficked to Japan."
* 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.
* Ties to Burmese dictators: Toyota, through the Toyota Tsusho Corporation, which is part of the Toyota Group of Companies, is involved in several joint business ventures with the ruthless military regime in Burma. The dictators use these revenues to repress and torture the people of Burma.
* Toyota and the race to the bottom: Toyota is imposing its two-tier, low wage model at its non-union plants in the south of the United States, which will result in wages and benefits being slashed across the entire auto industry.
The National Labor Committee recently documented how the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement descended into human trafficking with tens of thousands of foreign guest workers held under conditions of involuntary servitude.
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2008/06/18/090268.html
Better than the environment, right?
Safety of the environment not only concerns the future of our children ... but of the entire human race.
If chin-lo gets iced working for *our* future, who are we *NOT* to buy the products of his labour? Would you rather have all of those vehicles to a better tomorrow sitting on lots? Would you have Chin, and the hope for a better tomorrow, both die in vain?
Of course not.
Buy a Prius.
Toyota also probably sells used vehicules to war torn countries for use as
technicals. They sell em to us too, so why not the other side? Technically it's not aiding the enemy since it's through a used car broker and is not specifically meant to be used as anything but basic transportation. It'd be like selling old beat up GMC Buses to Iran and then having them use the engines in Tanks or something. There's a reason Toyota's number one.
In any case, it won't stop me from buying a Toyota. I like the Yaris, Corolla and Hilux. Still hoping for the Celica and MR2 to return.
If my '09 Corolla LE was delivered with a hairless philipino boy in the trunk ...
All the better.
I'll be curious to see the American public's reaction to this.
That's one hell of a story... though I think Toyota probably won't take too much of a beating sales wise. I've been wrong before though.
KFLO wrote:I'll be curious to see the American public's reaction to this.
That's one hell of a story... though I think Toyota probably won't take too much of a beating sales wise. I've been wrong before though.
Well the story was posted on the 18th and I never heard about it until this morning so it seems like it'll be swept under the rug.
Common attitudes seem to imply that North American Autoworkers should be treated in the same fasion.
biggest thing is what we think is morally wrong , is very common in alot of countries
i never thought toyota would get hit with it first , i figured it woulda been a smaller company , gm or chrysler
And they think Toyota is the only one doing this? I'm sure someone else in the auto industry is counting some extra dollars into sales somewhere for selling technicals and showing slave labour as "increased revenues through non-sales measures". Big business is about creative accounting, spinning things, regardless of what the average American thinks is wrong, into positive news, and making it looks like for a few seconds, when your pen runs over that dotted line when you buy your car, that they care for you.
2010 Honda Fit LX
Quote:
* Ties to Burmese dictators: Toyota, through the Toyota Tsusho Corporation, which is part of the Toyota Group of Companies, is involved in several joint business ventures with the ruthless military regime in Burma. The dictators use these revenues to repress and torture the people of Burma.
you may know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.
Quote:
* 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.
This is nothing new in Japan. I lived there for 5 years and the stuff I saw in that time would blow your mind. Japan is NOT economicly healthy, they force productivity and stability on the backs of thier workers. Japanese think this is normal its so wide spread. "Worked to death" news stories are so common place they dont even make the front page over there anymore.
"Go Before Show Yo."
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