GEORGETOWN, KY.
Success doesn’t always trickle down to Toyota workers
Health and safety ignored, number of temps skyrockets and wages and benefits may be reduced
Toyota is the world’s most profitable automaker – but workers at the company’s Kentucky vehicle plant say the Japanese auto giant often ignores the human cost of industrial success.
Workers from Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Kentucky (TMMK) held a March 31 town hall forum at the Hunter Presbyterian Church in Lexington to let the public know that Toyota often gets rid of team members who get hurt, hires low-paid temporary workers, and now has a secret plan to lower wages and benefits.
“We made Toyota what it is today, and we are being chewed up and spit out for our efforts,” said Tim Unger, an 18-year veteran worker.
Toyota workers say the public has a right to know their stories because taxpayers have provided $371 million in state and local government tax subsidies since the plant first opened in 1986.
Cornelia James, another 18-year veteran worker, recalls seeing a worker collapse from the heat during one summer. Her supervisor dragged her to the side and took her place in line.
“He was cussing because she fainted and he had to go on line,” James said, adding that no one came to help her for 30 minutes until workers shut down the line and begged him to go get help.
‘More and more people vanish’
“I did not see her back on the line; it’s like she vanished,” James said. “I began to see more and more people vanish. A few were moved to office jobs at a lower pay rate. Soon this ended, and people began to get sent home and put in the so-called ‘job pool.’ They could come back if they got 100 percent better and there was an opening.”
Instead, Toyota typically requires injured workers to accept a small settlement, sign a nondisclosure form, and show them the plant gate, the workers said.
Noel Christian Riddell, a 10-year skilled-trades worker, said temps, who now number more than 1,000, have little chance of being brought on full time, while veteran workers are pushed out the door.
“To add insult to injury, the atmosphere of respect has changed considerably,” Riddell said. “We were spoken to like children. Dignity was lost, and I felt like nothing more than a number.”
Riddell was injured on the job in 2005, but the company forced him to return before his surgeon released him, telling him he would forfeit his job if he stayed out.
Riddell and worker Manuel Eades were recently fired for allegedly accessing and distributing an internal document about a corporation plan to reduce wages and benefits. They deny management’s assertions and are fighting the dismissal. A worker panel set up by management voted they should not have been fired, but Toyota reversed its own internal disciplinary system.
The document, which Toyota does not dispute, says the corporation wants to “align” wages and benefits to other manufacturers in Kentucky – a much lower standard than what TMMK workers now earn.
UAW Vice President Terry Thurman, who directs the union’s National Organizing Department, was on hand to hear their stories, as were the Rev. John Rausch of the Diocese of Lexington, Cylister Williams, a member of the Kentucky Jobs With Justice (JWJ) Steering Committee, and JWJ coordinator Attica Scott.
JWJ has agreed to form a Workers’ Rights Board to allow Toyota workers to voice their concerns, and to recommend appropriate remedies.
“Toyota clearly has a plan for their workers,” Thurman said.
“The question is: Do the workers have a plan for themselves? These workers are beginning to realize it doesn’t have to be Toyota’s way or the highway.”
