It boils down to respect for their workforce.
Do you know how many hourly jobs GM has laid off from 2006 to July 2008? Take a guess. How about 34,000? And now, they’re talking about another 5,500 layoffs. And now they’re asking you and your government for a bailout to end their troubled, outdated, low quality, wasteful production system. OK, here’s a better question. How many hourly jobs has Toyota’s American production system laid off in the same time frame? Zero. Toyota has halted production at its Texas and Indiana plants for the past 3 months. But the 4,500 people who work at those plants have not been laid off. What!?!?! How? Why? Toyota has a special culture, deep-rooted values, and respect for their workforce. It means that while these employees were not manufacturing automobiles, they were in training. the workers also spent some time painting the plants and even helped build Habitat for Humanity homes. And they were getting paid. Toyota believes that its people are its greatest investment and its greatest asset. |
