Toyota Prius cars wait for customers at a Toyota dealer in Hollywood, California. U.S. investigators demanded a 2006 memo which warned of safety issuesToyota has been forced to hand a 'smoking gun' memo produced by its own factory workers to US investigators probing a spate of system faults.
The two-page document, sent to president of the company Katsuaki Watanabe in 2006, warned of systematic threats to car safety.
Damningly, it highlighted 'safety sacrifices' made as the company allegedly put profit before the well-being of customers.
The memo, written by a group of long-term employees, pinpointed inadequate development time for new models and a general drop in standards.
Authors claimed manufacturing was now done by 'amateurs' and that highly skilled workers had been sidelined.
They also predicted that the practices would eventually threaten the company's survival if changes were not made.
Toyota, the world's largest car maker, is facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions.
It has been forced to recall eight million vehicles worldwide since late last year for problems related to unintended acceleration.
The flaws have been blamed for the deaths of at least five people on American roads and the company now faces a slew of legal claims.
A US congressional committee is investigating the crisis and demanded the memo, written in October 2006.
It was compiled by the 20-member All Toyota Labour Union headed by Tadao Wakatsuki, who had worked at the firm's Motomachi factory for 45 years.
The memo was sent to President of the company Katsuaki Watanabe in 2006 from a breakaway union of staffHe was prompted to act after Toyota had been charged with criminal negligence after an accident in Japan that injured a family of five.
The company was eventually cleared of the charges - but the verdict did not assuage Wakatsuki's concerns.
With several other employees of Toyota and its subsidiaries, he set up a breakaway labour union in an effort to improve working conditions throughout the group.
His decision to form the All Toyota Labour Union, he told The Times, was based on what he saw as the acquiescence of the official Toyota union, a body that rarely challenged management.
As well as dwelling on numerous shortcomings of Toyota’s management practices, the memo made seven requests.
One of them demanded a review of cost reduction measures 'so that the company can guarantee the manufacturing of safe cars'.
Toyota acknowledged today that senior management had seen the original memo, but said they had responded to just one of the requests - a suggestion that management look into ways of reducing the total number of hours worked by employees each year.
The memo included points that:
— Between 2000 to 2005 Toyota was forced to recall more than million cars, a higher proportion of total vehicle recalls than other car makers.
— Toyota faces a serious problem that could threaten the survival of the company if it is not more thorough in identifying problems and their origins.
— The company is threatened by: combining vehicle platforms, the sharing of parts between models, the outsourcing of planning, a shortage of experimental data on prototypes because of shortened development time, a shortage of experienced specialists and an increase in working hours for employees.
— Worries about the processes that are vital for manufacturing safe cars, and fears that they 'ultimately may be ignored … in the name of competition'
— Requests: a priority on safety, a review of cost-reduction measures, better training for contract workers, a return to craftsmanship.
The memo warned that an increasing number of problems that led to vehicle recalls were arising not at the manufacturing level, but in the planning stages.
source: dailymail