"If we're not careful, Toyota will quickly go back to being an ordinary company." To pass on the company's unique character to the next generation, Toyota needs to restart its family conversations.
No top or bottom, no center or outside
Chairman Kito
On behalf of the union, I would like to say a few words reflecting on this year’s labor-management discussions.
The automotive industry of which we are a part goes beyond the realm of “monozukuri,” exerting a significant influence on various fields, including the economy, the environment, and technology. Within this context, I am once again struck by the tremendous weight of our role and responsibility as Toyota’s labor union and management.
Under these circumstances, we are not simply seeking to defeat the competition and ensure our own survival. Together with our auto industry colleagues, we want to provide future generations with an environment where they can continue to grow, become more competitive, work with confidence, and take on new challenges.
I believe this is essential for boosting our sustainability as an industry, contributing to Japan’s economy and society, and delivering happiness to our customers around the world. As a union, we will continue to do our part by gathering the genuine voices of our colleagues and delivering them to the company, while working together to find solutions.
In order to continue strengthening our competitiveness for the future, we need to ensure that labor-management discussions help to question conventional frameworks and turn our resolve and commitment to transforming workplaces into action.
However, what stood out to me most strongly through these sessions is that our labor-management discussions must not happen solely at the center.
A union has no top or bottom, no center or outside. We are unwaveringly committed to eliminating hierarchical structures and strengthening horizontal ties across branches and workplaces.
The shared foundation of Toyota’s labor and management is an ethos in which the company seeks happiness for its employees, and employees desire growth for the company.
・Are we really doing everything we can to realize the company's vision?
・Are we really addressing the happiness of each and every worker?
・Are we always conscious of this commitment to each other and continuing to ask ourselves the tough questions?
We must make sure that this mindset is enacted not only here in the center, but whenever discussions are held at individual workplaces. The union is committed to continuing its efforts in this regard, and we hope that management at every level will adopt the same approach.
Finally, since 2019 we have re-examined our shared labor-management foundations and changed our engagement with individual workplaces. However, these recent discussions have given us an opportunity to reconsider whether we have really been able to make progress.
Unless both sides continue to make considerable effort, we will never be able to transform our labor-management discussions.
With this in mind, let us continue our respective efforts to keep moving forward, one step at a time.
Finally, Oyaji Mitsuru Kawai, who chaired the talks, brought the year’s labor-management discussions to a close by calling on both sides to begin taking action.
Oyaji Kawai
I feel that these labor-management talks, with the second round held at the group level, highlighted the importance of engaging in discussion.
Labor-management relations encapsulate our personal relationships in the workplace. The most immediate form of discussion is communication with supervisors and junior team members. Let’s start with these discussions, and by recognizing the company’s sense of urgency as something that affects each of us. I want us to discuss the things we want to do, and should do, to our hearts’ content, and then translate this into action.
Based on these actions, I want employees to take the initiative and continue speaking out at workplace roundtable sessions, sharing what they want to do and discuss in order to improve their work practices or environments.
Management must also be prepared to make decisions and put them into action.
By continuing to engage in such exchanges, I believe we can create workplaces that harness the strengths of diverse members and provide fulfillment for every individual, thereby helping to underpin our future productivity and competitiveness.
Let us all continue to engage in discussion and take action to become a company where future generations—in five, ten, or fifty years from now—can work happily.