Cars

Strikers seal deal at Toyota to resume work after pay hike

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-21 10:36

TIANJIN - Workers went back to work on Sunday morning at a Toyota parts supplier in North China's Tianjin municipality, ending a three-day strike for higher pay, local authorities said.

Workers at the No 2 plant of Toyota Gosei (Tianjin) Co (TG) in the Dongli Economic Development Area - which houses more than 30 Toyota suppliers - refused to work on Thursday and demanded higher pay, forcing the plant's production line to shut down.

TG and the workers reached a deal at around 5 pm on Saturday, according to a statement on Sunday from the city government's information office.

However, the statement did not disclose the terms of the agreement.

According to a worker surnamed Zhao, production resumed at 9 am on Sunday after TG promised an extra 200 yuan ($29.3) per month for full attendance. The workers had demanded a 20 percent pay increase and settled for 13 percent.

The plant has more than 1,300 workers earning an average monthly wage of about 1,500 yuan.

Zhao said he was not sure whether the return to work is only temporary, or if all of his colleagues had accepted TG's offer.

Workers planned and called for the strike over the Internet in early June. The company had agreed to raise workers' wages by 17 percent before the strike.

The company usually raises wages by 15 percent every year.

TG Tianjin, established in 1995 with registered capital of 200 million yuan, had sales revenue of 1.53 billion yuan in 2009. It makes brake hoses, airbags, instrument panels and steering wheels.

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Another TG subsidiary, Tianjin Star Light Rubber & Plastic Co (Star Light), in Tianjin's Xiqing Economic Development Area, was also hit by a strike on Tuesday when more than 1,000 workers put down their tools, demanding their pay be restored to its 2009 level.

On average, the workers' pay had dropped by 50 percent since early 2010, said a female employee surnamed Huang.

The strike ended after the company agreed to the workers' demands on Tuesday night. The brief strike did not disrupt Star Light's supply to Toyota's Tianjin assembly lines, a Tianjin Toyota spokesman surnamed Bi said.

The strikes at TG followed a string of walkouts over pay since early May: three at Honda's auto parts plants in Guangdong; one at a parts supplier in East China's Jiangsu province; and another at an industrial sewing machine company, also funded by a Japanese investor, in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

Xinhua News Agency