Toyota tries to cut factory worker pay

Car giant Toyota will ask its Australian factory workers to take a similar paycut to their colleagues from Holden, as pressure on the struggling car manufacturing industry reaches new heights.

A statement issued by Australia’s biggest car manufacturer and employers says Toyota is taking "urgent action to keep the company at the negotiating table for future investment opportunities and improve its long-term manufacturing viability in this country".

Toyota says it is seeking "a variation of its Workplace Agreement terms" and the "removal of outdated and uncompetitive practices and allowances that increase Toyota’s labour costs and reduce its global competitiveness".

Toyota executives met with union officials and factory workers today and the company says details of the new agreement will be discussed in the coming weeks.

"Everyone is working extremely hard to ensure Toyota’s long term manufacturing future in Australia, but we must do more if we want to move towards being globally competitive," Toyota Australia president and CEO Max Yasuda said in a prepared media statement.

"The support of our employees is needed to modernise the work practices at our plant to increase productivity and improve our competitiveness.

"Our continuous improvement towards global competitiveness is crucial to securing production of the next generation vehicle and maintaining our export program.

"We need to improve our productivity and reduce the cost of each of our locally built vehicles by $3800 by 2018. Although we have made progress, the speed of change has not been fast enough.

"We need to take urgent action because we are now seeing gaps in our transformation plans. We must develop detailed plans to close these gaps if we want to remain at the negotiating table for future investments."

Toyota said the two planned payrises for manufacturing workers next year as part of the current Workplace Agreement would go ahead.

But News Corp Australia has been told other shift bonuses are under review.

"We want to stand by our commitment to our employees and honour the two scheduled pay rises for 2014," Mr Yasuda said in the media statement.

"During the coming weeks we will work closely with our 2500 manufacturing employees, their families and the union to explain why we need to modernise our work practices."

Toyota said factory workers will vote on the proposed variation of the terms and conditions on Thursday 5 December. The outcome of the vote will be announced on Friday 6 December 2013.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling