Posted on 07/03/2005 3:25:54 PM PDT by ItsJeff
WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained.
That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.
Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge.
"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.
Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.
"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.
The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.
The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.
Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.
In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.
"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.
Tanguay said Toyota's decision on where to build its seventh North American plant was "not only about money."
"It's about being in the right place," he said, noting the company can rely on the expertise of experienced Cambridge workers to help get Woodstock up and running.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said the money the province and Ottawa are pledging for the project is well-spent. His government has committed $400 million, including the latest Toyota package, to the province's auto sector, which helped finance $5-billion worth of industry projects.
"I think that's a great investment that will more than pay for itself in terms of new jobs and new economic returns," McGuinty said.
The provincial funds for the auto sector were drawn from a fund set up to attract investments specifically in that industry. McGuinty said no similar industry funds are being planned for other sectors, but added the province wants to attract biotechnology companies - those working on multibillion-dollar advanced medical research.
"What we have done for auto we would like to be able to do for biotech," he said. "That's where we're lending some real focus to at the present time."
Similarly, Emmerson said Ottawa is looking to help out industries that create "clusters" of jobs around them - such as in aerospace, shipbuilding, telecommunications and forestry - where supply bases build around a large manufacturer.
© The Canadian Press, 2005
Are you illiterate if you fail to use spell check?
If the racism is there why try to avoid it by hinting they dont want to hire illiterate rednecks.
I think it is Toyota doing the injecting If you dont , thats fine., But lets shed that light. lets get down to the real nitty gritty.If they claim Canadians are smarter , why is it they make such a claim? I think its bullshit.
BMW's been having problems, Saturn's, well, Saturn, and Toyota's KY plant hasn't been trouble-free either.
thank you!!
Coming from a poster that postulates that rural school children drop out of school in the 6th grade....no doubt to go pick cotton.
Boy, more American arrogance!!!!! Someday we might wake up and discover the rest of the world has left us behind.......
At least Canada has an understandable organizing principle, it is called socialism. In America, we have no such organizing principle other than those in power selling out to the highest bidder. Which is to say the Japanese would rather invest in the certain path which Canada is heading down rather than the uncertain path which these two corrupt parties here in this country have chosen. At the rate that our federal government, our state governments, our local governments, as well as the American consumer is accumulating debt, who is to say who will own us in twenty years. My feeling is that the Japanese would rather invest capital in the certainty created by a conservative government and a conservative populace, but hey that ain't the US of A in the 21st century.
I don't know what they do, but the DOE stats prove me out.
By the way, that's not all rural schoolchildren, that's just AL, GA, MS, and LA.
All you have to do to prove that is drive into the backwoods bayou country of Louisiana.... [shudder]
Apparently Honda, Mercedes and Hyundai don’t think Alabama workers are illiterate.
No.
Who is illiterate?
All the posters here who say "to fat," instead of "too fat." Who say, "loose weight," instead of "lose weight."
All the posters here who have made it a joke to say "hugh," instead of "huge." Or, "stuned," instead of "stunned."
I think Toyota has a point. If I see another "its"/"it's" misuse, I will scream.
I could go on and on.
This website is a tesitmony to Americans' lack of education.
From the 1964 Mississippi Voters' Literacy Test, reputedly drawn up with input from the Rev. Killen:
Q. From what vessel does one drink coffee?
I'm with you - American workers have been told they deserve so much more for so much less that I can see where it might be tough to get some willing to put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. The Unions and the 'give them a minimum wage that they can raise a family on" folks are stabbing the People in the back every chance they get and I believe they know that it hurts us and that is the real goal rather than trying to make it better for folks.
"that means these "superbly intelligent" people are working in high tech jobs for less than $20/hour"
Holding out for higher money and not having a job is smarter?
Sounds like union logic.
$20/hr is a decent wage and I'd bet some positions pay more.
I was in a local small-town cafe yesterday, and overheard two redneck ladies discussing cockfighting. One said her husband was putting in two roosters for $4,000. She punched buttons on a calculator and announced to her friend: Top prize split between two winners winning 7 straight fights was to be 128 grand. She must have whipped out some quick math: $2000 x 2 to the seventh, divided by two. (Was the fighting to be held in neighboring Louisiana, where it is legal?)
Who said southern redneck American cockfighters are illiterate, and can't build blood-red Toyotas?
I hope they plan on selling their little cars in Canada, because when this gets out, they won't be selling many here.
Don't forget Mercedes in AL.
Somehow I think this was about more than illiteracy.
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