Banzai! Toyota in North America

The US automobile market is going the way of consumer electronics, unless US manufacturers can reverse the trend.

Yes, RCA, Zenith and a few well known American names are still used, but they are no longer assembled here. Most come from China, Korea, or Singapore.

Unless things change, there will be some vehicles carrying American name plates, but they won't be assembled here.

I am curious, what is the benefits package like for an American working at a U.S. Toyota, Nissan, or Honda plant like? Are the benefits anything like what UAW workers have?

-KM

The US Toyota workers just get 401k's, I think with a company match. The health care is more expensive.

So the wages are similar, but the benefits are less.

Jeff

It will be American cars from Korea (now!) and China. With German and Japanese cars built in the USA.

So we buy those that are built in the USA, who cares about the company name anyway.

Better, actually. As Detroit Free Press has observed in a recent article, Toyota is now at parity or slightly better than UAW wages. A lot of this is an effort by Toyota to stave off unionization efforts.

Ted

True!

On reason you might chose a vehicle made by an American corporation is Japanese corporations take all of the profits, earned in the US, out of the US federal tax free. Guess who make up for those lost taxes?

mike

Yeah, they're not stupid. The adversarial relationship that the union likes would cost Toyota a lot of productivity, and they'd rather pay extra to the people they have that work. Anybody would.

The question is, if the UAW disappears, would they still continue to pay those higher wages? Over time, I would bet that the wages would start falling after inflation adjustment.

Ted

But quality is better at non UAW plants. Union workers are lazy and overpaid. The bloated benefits package forces car makers to skimp on components and quality suffers. God help Toyota if they build in Mexico. Chhhrysler build sthere and there quality is spotty

Do you know _anything_ about business? Have you ever made a payroll?

Do you think the airlines, city and state governments, railroads, utilities, etc... would continue to pay what they pay if all union representation disappeared?

Any properly run business pays what it costs to attract and retain properly qualified, dependable employees. Anything more is a waste of resources and a dereliction of management duties.

The article in the Detroit Press was not totally accurate. The fact is the workers in the Toyota plants received bonus in 2006 that put them on a parity with the base rate in union plants. The wage rate at Japanese plants, that only assemble car in the US, is $4 to $6 an our less than in Union plants, except for Toyotas only Union plant in California.

Out of that wage the nonunion workers in the Japanese plants must cover most of their own 401K and contribute to their health care plan. Workers in union plants have a company paid pension plan and do not contribute to the cost of their health care plain.

mike

That may be your opinion but the fact is build quality, in any assemble plant, is a function of management not the workers.

mike

Right. A powerful union that you're not a member of gives you the best of both worlds. With the union broken, they'll pay whatever the market requires.