Toyota Motor Corp has stopped production at its main factory in China after a strike at its plastic parts supplier, the carmaker said on Saturday, the latest in a series of labour disputes across the country.
Widening discontent among an estimated 130 million strong pool of migrant workers, whose toil has powered China's growth, threatens to undermine the government's legitimacy and erode the nation's competitiveness as a low-cost global factory hub.
Toyota said its factory at Tianjin, near Beijing, stopped production midway through the day on Friday and it was unclear if workers would return on Monday. But workers at a Honda auto parts plant in southern China showed up for work on Saturday apparently ready to accept a new pay deal to resolve a week-long strike.
The Tianjin plant, with three assembly lines and a combined annual production capacity of 420,000 vehicles, was closed for the weekend, Toyota spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said. Plans for resuming production on Monday depended on securing steady supplies from strike-hit parts maker Toyoda Gosei.
Two walkouts have hit the parts supplier for Toyota. Workers at the Toyoda Gosei plant, also in Tianjin, said late on Friday the strike disrupting supply lines was still on. A strike also began on Friday at a brewery partly owned by Danish brewer Carlsberg in the southwestern city of Chongqing and the company said workers were still refusing to return to work.
China's leaders, who are obsessed by stability but also say they can ensure a better life for those at the bottom end of an expanding rich-poor gap, have muted coverage of the unrest in state media while expressing public support for workers.
Workers at the Honda Lock factory walked off the job last week. They agreed to resume work on Tuesday through Friday with the understanding that management would present an improved deal on wages and benefits nearer to their initial calls for a rise in base wage levels of 700 yuan, the equivalent of just over $100.
The new Honda deal was emerging after days of difficult talks between worker representatives and management. "We're tired of all this tension," said one young factory girl who was among hundreds of workers streaming to work at the Honda auto parts plant on a sunny morning. "We just want to go back to work and see what happens."
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