The following statement was issued by Toyota for use on Open Line. This Toyota Statement for WOSU was sent by Steven Curtis, Investor and Media Relations, Toyota Motor North America, Inc., on July 8, 2008.

Statement for WOSU

Toyota is committed to being a good corporate citizen to all of our stakeholders, including our employees, partners, suppliers and customers. The NLC report contains numerous inaccuracies that present a false and misleading picture of our company. Contrary to the report’s allegations, Toyota respects its employees and honors the basic human rights of the people involved in our business. We comply with all applicable local laws and regulations wherever we operate while providing fair compensation and benefits.

Consistent with our guiding principles, we provide a safe, healthy working environment for all of our employees. On an ongoing basis, we also strive to ensure that our suppliers and subcontractors adhere to these standards. To be clear, Toyota has zero tolerance for any form of forced or child labor and we will not knowingly work with companies that are engaged in any of these practices.

Specifically:

• We conduct regular compliance audits of the working conditions at all of Toyota’s operations. For example, our Prius plant in Japan is one of the most advanced auto manufacturing facilities in the world, employing the most progressive manufacturing and work policies and, of course, the most stringent environmental practices. Toyota’s renowned manufacturing techniques are constantly benchmarked and studied by third parties who have ready access to observe working conditions.
• We adopted Green Purchasing Guidelines in 1999 and have been regularly distributing them to our suppliers. These guidelines clearly describe our expectations for suppliers to comply with all local, national and international laws and regulations regarding fair working conditions. They also require suppliers to implement Toyota’s philosophy of “respect for people.”
• We meet with our suppliers to help ensure compliance with our Guidelines. For example, in February 2008, we held a global supplier meeting with our Tier 1 suppliers to reinforce our purchasing policies, including those pertaining to employees and working conditions.
• In North America, Toyota is actively engaged in the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), whose mission is to improve the guidelines and productivity within the industry, among other goals. We are also collaborating with AIAG to help develop training materials and workshops for our international suppliers by sharing best practices.

Among the many inaccuracies in the NLC Report is its characterization of Toyota’s involvement in a guest worker placement program that is managed by an independent agency in partnership with the Japanese government.

• The fact is that no Toyota company has ever been involved in confiscating guest worker passports and Toyota has no workers subject to a guest worker program.

The NLC report also paints a false picture of Toyota’s use of temporary workers. Toyota’s use of temporary workers is in line with common auto industry practice. Temporary workers are treated well and compensated fairly. In fact, when permanent positions become available, they are filled by our temporary workforce.

Finally, the NLC report totally mischaracterizes Toyota’s involvement in Burma. The truth is that Toyota’s involvement in Burma is extremely minimal. Toyota withdrew from Burma in 2000. We sell no vehicles there other than to U.N. entities or foreign embassies.

Here's the audio file, if you want the whole picture:
http://str...808bOL.mp3

- Scott Gowans

the basic human rights of the workers 

The basic human right is for a worker to choose to go to work or not. These workers aren't slaves, so why treat them as such. Just because thy don't get US worker wages doesn't mean that working for a wage low relative to the US isn't making them better off. If these people make more than$2 a day, they are twice as well off as 20% of the worlds population. America wouldn't be where it is today if we didn't go through the development stage, where we paid awful wages to get to where we are today. You can't start off at the top, you must grow to it. That is why India and other emerging markets oppose US labor laws and reject our efforts to increse their wages. They know this is nothing more than a way to keep them in poverty, by hiding behind the guise of trying to help the worker. If a US worker is at risk of losing their job, the best way to keep it is to ast like you are trying to help the Indian worker by driving up their wage.

"One of the most frequently utilized gauges of poverty is the percent of people within a country or region that live on less than one dollar ($1) a day [a]. About 1/5 of the Earth's population, or 1.1 billion people, currently live on less than $1 a day"

With time and growth, their economy grows, the tax base grows, the population gets educated, and the wages go up. That is the economic way to improves the lives of the people. The sure way to stop progress if to apply OSHA stds and US labor laws to foreign work environments.

Should we do more to protect workers here and abroad 

Only if we agree to let foreign countries "protect" our workers here. How absured and arrogant is it for our labor movement to think that we have the right to write other country's labor laws.