The National Labor Committee : The Toyota You Don't Know
The American and Japanese people have a lot in common. In both countries, excessive corporate power and greed are destroying the middle class as income disparity soars, enriching the few while the vast majority of us are left behind. As the two largest economies in the world, the people of the U.S. and Japan should, and could, have a very powerful voice in helping to shape a global economy that fosters respect for human and worker rights, protects our environment and promotes social and economic equality. There needs to be more dialogue among labor, environmental, human and women’s rights organizations and students in the U.S. and Japan. If corporations are the only ones talking to one another, we will just get more of the same.
In the U.S., we produce too many gas guzzlers. But they are made by well-paid, middle class union workers who have a democratic voice on the shop floor. In Japan, companies like Toyota make some of the best hybrids. But their unions are weak and lack independence—allowing the widespread exploitation of cheap temporary workers in their plants, along with a parts supply chain that is riddled with sweatshop abuses, including human trafficking. We have a lot to learn from each other.
Right now, Toyota and the U.S. auto companies are locked in a race to the bottom, which will inevitably lead them to adopt each others worst practices.
If the middle class is going to survive, it is time for working people in the U.S. and Japan to begin speaking to one another.
http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=562
