Strikes halt Toyota and Honda plants in China
By Chang-Ran Kim and Don Durfee |
June 24, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
JAPANESE auto giants Toyota and Honda said major car factories in south China halted work yesterday due to strikes at parts suppliers, as worker discontent continued to jolt the industry.
The stoppages are the latest in a series of strikes over pay at parts suppliers in Guangdong and other parts of China.
Denso (Guangzhou Nansha) Co Ltd, which is owned by Japan's Denso Corp and supplies fuel injection equipment and other parts, stopped shipping on Monday. Some of its 1,200 workforce sat in groups in front a plant warehouse yesterday.
"The salary is only 1,300 yuan (US$191) a month, including meal subsidies, while my rent costs me 200 yuan a month," a worker surnamed Zhang from Hunan Province told Xinhua news agency.
"I feel not respected by the human resources department. They often say, 'You can leave if you think other plants are better,' when we ask for something," another worker told Xinhua.
As a result of the Denso strike, a Toyota Motor Corp plant in Guangdong Province that can make 360,000 vehicles a year has stood idle since Tuesday. Toyota said production would halt at the plant all day yesterday and did not know if it could restart today.
Honda idled
Honda Motor Co said it halted two plants of Guangqi Honda, one of the company's joint ventures in China, after a strike at a Chinese factory choked off parts supplies. Japan's NHK Spring is a partner at that factory.
The two idled Honda plants can together make up to 360,000 Accord, Fit and other vehicles a year.
The strikes have exposed the vulnerability of tight "just-in-time" supply chains to restive rural migrant workers impatient with wage levels they say lag far behind company profits.
"The automotive sector in China, especially for foreign companies, is highly profitable, but there hasn't been an appropriate scaling of company profits and workers' earnings," said Chang Kai, a labor law professor at Renmin University in Beijing.
In recent weeks, strikes have broken out at a supplier of locks to Honda and a Toyota Gosei plant that makes parts for Toyota among others. All have since been resolved.
"It's an outcome of problems built up over a long time," said Chang. "Workers no longer accept their conditions, but lack the channels to use milder ways to raise their demands. So they're starting to see that strikes are a way."
A striking Denso worker, who requested anonymity, said no compromise was in sight.
The stoppages are the latest in a series of strikes over pay at parts suppliers in Guangdong and other parts of China.
Denso (Guangzhou Nansha) Co Ltd, which is owned by Japan's Denso Corp and supplies fuel injection equipment and other parts, stopped shipping on Monday. Some of its 1,200 workforce sat in groups in front a plant warehouse yesterday.
"The salary is only 1,300 yuan (US$191) a month, including meal subsidies, while my rent costs me 200 yuan a month," a worker surnamed Zhang from Hunan Province told Xinhua news agency.
"I feel not respected by the human resources department. They often say, 'You can leave if you think other plants are better,' when we ask for something," another worker told Xinhua.
As a result of the Denso strike, a Toyota Motor Corp plant in Guangdong Province that can make 360,000 vehicles a year has stood idle since Tuesday. Toyota said production would halt at the plant all day yesterday and did not know if it could restart today.
Honda idled
Honda Motor Co said it halted two plants of Guangqi Honda, one of the company's joint ventures in China, after a strike at a Chinese factory choked off parts supplies. Japan's NHK Spring is a partner at that factory.
The two idled Honda plants can together make up to 360,000 Accord, Fit and other vehicles a year.
The strikes have exposed the vulnerability of tight "just-in-time" supply chains to restive rural migrant workers impatient with wage levels they say lag far behind company profits.
"The automotive sector in China, especially for foreign companies, is highly profitable, but there hasn't been an appropriate scaling of company profits and workers' earnings," said Chang Kai, a labor law professor at Renmin University in Beijing.
In recent weeks, strikes have broken out at a supplier of locks to Honda and a Toyota Gosei plant that makes parts for Toyota among others. All have since been resolved.
"It's an outcome of problems built up over a long time," said Chang. "Workers no longer accept their conditions, but lack the channels to use milder ways to raise their demands. So they're starting to see that strikes are a way."
A striking Denso worker, who requested anonymity, said no compromise was in sight.
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