The Los Angeles Times is reporting about six Toyota veterans who put their jobs on the line. All six knew the memo they were sending to senior management could end their careers. But they had noticed a troubling trend in the quest to fill the U.S. demand for smaller gas-efficient vehicles. The memo said that Toyota had taken shortcuts in both safety and manpower at the detriment of the company. From 2000 to 2005, five million cars were recalled, the memo said, that was 36% of all vehicles the company sold and put the company’s future at risk.
Management never responded to the memo. In 2008, the National Labor Committee, a human rights group, released a 65-page report titled, “The Toyota You Don’t Know.”
The report outlines sweatshop abuses. The company imported foreign workers from China and Vietnam to work in Japan and many were forced to work without overtime. Another worker said while Toyota used to check each car for safety and quality, now they check maybe 60 percent. People were overworked, some committed suicide. One man collapsed at his desk of a heart attack, he was 30-years-old. He had worked 144 hours of unpaid overtime. A Japanese court ruled he literally worked himself to death. His widow is taking over complaints against the company. She went into a Toyota stockholder meeting to confront the president about unpaid overtime. Katsuaki Watanabe said he would look into it.
Japans version of Consumer Union says Toyota had the most secretive business practices including secret recalls that would lure owners back into the dealer allegedly for a checkup and instead they’ve had a defective part replaced. Eventually many predict that Toyota will face criminal charges for hiding defects and refusing so long to address them.
