JCP members struggling against Toyota's no-pay-raise policy

Members of the Japanese Communist Party committee at Japan's largest car maker have made their New Year's resolution to develop their struggles to defend workers' rights.

At Toyota Motor Corporation, communist party members earn respect from workers who are forced into severe working conditions. On JCP activities there, a worker said, "They are doing what the union should do."

Toyota's head office and 10 out of its 12 factories are located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. In the November 2003 general election, the JCP doubled the vote it received in the 2001 Upper House election in the single-seat constituency where Toyota City is located.

Toyota's chairman is Okuda Hiroshi, who chairs the Japan Business Federation (JBF or Nippon Keidanren). Calling for "Challenging uncommon tasks," Toyota since 2002 has been pushing ahead with a cost-reduction strategy.

A Toyota plant has announced that it will reduce its workforce by 23 percent and increase output by 23 percent. It is expected to create 160 percent of stretch-out.

Toyota, which has achieved a record profit each year, in 2002 became the first Japanese company to make a trillion-yen in earnings. It further achieved a record breaking four billion yen in 2003 in profits.

Despite the good corporate performance, Toyota has not given its workers a pay raise for two consecutive years. It has made clear that it will offer no wage increase in the 2004 bargaining negotiations to be held as part of the annual spring struggle.

The Toyota Workers Union, which did not demand an average wage hike in the 2003 Spring Struggle, plans to forgo a pay increase this year too. (end)