CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Some workers at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Buffalo are talking to their fellow employees about getting union representation at the plant that makes engines and transmissions.
Local plant managers reportedly told employees they could not distribute union literature during work breaks or lunch breaks.
On Friday afternoon, some of those employees filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board's regional office in Cincinnati.
"On or about November 6, 2009, the above employer [Toyota], by its officers, agents or representatives has violated the [National Labor Relations] Act by prohibiting workers from distributing union literature in non-work areas on non-work time," the grievance states.
Tim Smith, a Toyota employee for 10 1/2 years, said, "Toyota has set up our 'break areas' to be so-called 'work areas.'
"By doing so they are interfering with our rights under the National Labor Relations Act to pass out literature. We are standing up for our legal rights and have asked the United Auto Workers for resources to help us address this issue."
Mitch Weese, human resources director for Toyota in Buffalo, said, "At this point, I am unaware of the charge. So I do not have a comment. We have not received anything official.
"But we do have a solicitation and distribution policy that says that distributions [of any type of pamphlets or literature] can only occur during nonwork times in nonwork areas. We do have a policy that spells that out."
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Some workers at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Buffalo are talking to their fellow employees about getting union representation at the plant that makes engines and transmissions.
Local plant managers reportedly told employees they could not distribute union literature during work breaks or lunch breaks.
On Friday afternoon, some of those employees filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board's regional office in Cincinnati.
"On or about November 6, 2009, the above employer [Toyota], by its officers, agents or representatives has violated the [National Labor Relations] Act by prohibiting workers from distributing union literature in non-work areas on non-work time," the grievance states.
Tim Smith, a Toyota employee for 10 1/2 years, said, "Toyota has set up our 'break areas' to be so-called 'work areas.'
"By doing so they are interfering with our rights under the National Labor Relations Act to pass out literature. We are standing up for our legal rights and have asked the United Auto Workers for resources to help us address this issue."
Mitch Weese, human resources director for Toyota in Buffalo, said, "At this point, I am unaware of the charge. So I do not have a comment. We have not received anything official.
"But we do have a solicitation and distribution policy that says that distributions [of any type of pamphlets or literature] can only occur during nonwork times in nonwork areas. We do have a policy that spells that out."
Roger Kerson, director of public relations at the UAW headquarters in Detroit, said on Friday, "Toyota workers in West Virginia have some real concerns about their rights to communicate with co-workers in their workplace.
"As a result, they have asked the UAW to help them address those concerns. That is what we are going to do," Kerson said. "The decisions are up to the local Toyota workers. But we are always ready to assist them."
Richard Snyder, who had worked for Toyota for nearly 11 years, said he wants "to continue to see Toyota succeed. But I also want to exercise my legal rights as a worker to talk with my co-workers and hand out union literature on our breaks."
Toyota is the top car seller in the United States and the world, having taken the lead in the U.S. after General Motors, Ford and Chrysler experienced sales slumps in recent years.
Since the 1980s, Toyota typically paid the same wages and benefits as the Big Three union-organized companies, partly to attract quality workers and convince them they did not need to belong to a union, according to "On the Line News" published by the UAW on its Web site.
Seiichi Sudo, president of Toyota in North America, wrote a five-year "Self-Reliance Plan" back in 2006 outlining company plans to reduce labor costs by $300 million by 2011.
"Our strategy moving forward is to base our hourly wages more closely with the state manufacturing wages where each plant is located, and not tie ourselves so closely to the U.S. auto industry, or other competitors," Sudo wrote.
Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.
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4GOD, was that directed at me. If so, then you are sadly mistaken.
Don’t include me in with the current crop of High School Science Educators, I was trained in the “old school” back in 59/62.
And yes, I have the knowledge and the ability and I applied said. And I could talk to you for the next 12 hours and wouldn’t begin to tell you all the things that I have done and/or acquired over the past 45+ years. Just the things that I have lost would boggle your mind. But that’s why they say divorces are like hurricanes. Clickety eer: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3449735.html
"67% of companies do not pay fed tax." Are you speaking of income tax only or all tax, like FICA match? If that is so, why are they exempt? Fed income tax is charged on net income (profit)and not gross income.
"No Child Left Behind has dumbed us down." How so? The testing required by NCLB has pointed out the deficiencies in education. That was one purpose of the act to define shortcomings in education. NCLB also required the teachers be "highly qualified". Highly qualified means to have an education in the subject area the teacher is teaching. Attempting to remove math or science being taught by someone with a degree in another subject such as phy ed. Most teachers are required to "keep up" via renewal requirements or advanced degrees in subject area.
If education teaches 3Rs plus computer technology, the students will be able to survive. They will sort themselves out as to the level of success attained.
We must acquire knowledge through our entire lives. AS the base of knowledge grows exponentially, we become antiquated and left behind without keeping up.
If you are going to guide or teach, without keeping up, society would just as soon you not. The students will then be required to pick up, on their own, where your knowledge base acquisition stopped. Very time consuming and costly for business.
We now find ourselves in a situation called generation bypass. Some students acquire computer and technical skills that surpass the teachers before they reach grade school (they have desire). The worst part is they also go to the internet for their social, moral, ethical and other critical soft skills. So who is teaching them? So we put computers in all of the schools to allow like access to all, yet we do not teach the teachers how to use or apply any of this.
You have background, you have the ability to acquire; you just refuse to.