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
No Toyota for you!
And you are a worthy opponent!
See #77
You hit it right on the button, about this being a code word for blacks.
I love how low-rent yokels like to think they are "supeeryur" to both yankees and immigrants. Personally, I never understood why folks come to this country from China, Russia, India, Cuba and Poland and start successful businesses and send their kids to college, while the brain-dead hicks still sit around getting fat and looking forward to the next tractor pull or a new Mega Wal Mart.
This is NOT true, btw, of all southerners or rural folk, just a class of people that I have dealt with while traveling the highways and byways of this great nation of ours. Lets not start pumping our chests about the superiority of our respective regions and how inferior "furners and bayners" are without acknowledging the fact that we have problems with some of our own people.
What makes you think the "average Po-dunk in Alabama" is working at these factories? Those type of jobs usually attract all you "educated folk" from the city, fleeing the urban crap holes you "educated folk" created.
Hope the folks in rural Louisiana can't read - you don't want a bunch of dolls looking like you with needles in them...
Letter transpositions are not the same as word/grammatical errors. A letter transposition is most often a typing error. A word/grammatical error often indicated the writer doesn't understand basic rules of language.
Get a clue. Spellcheck doesn't flag words that are misused.
No, it only flags words that are misspelled, like "tesitmony" genius.
It would be nice not to allow any of these vehicles to be sold in the United States. Maybe the people of Canada can be just as easy to train to buy these cars as they are to make them.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
"4,000 Toyota workers at the company's two Cambridge, Ontario assembly plants.
~~snip~~
The plants produce the Toyota Corolla and Matrix, and Lexus RX 300.
Workers earn approximately $31.30 per hour.
"... said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.""Follow the money" as they say.
Well, us illiterates here in GA say that the best thing that comes out of AL is I-20 !
Are you claiming the rust-belt plants in Michigan are paragons of productivity and quality?
Os, waht's yuor piont? Any nimrod can use spell check. When you can recite Pi to the 48,000 decimal place come back and boast.
Neither does Toyota. Who is the quote in this article from?
Unfortunately, this is true. Fruehauf built a plant in Scott County, TN back in the mid-1980's in order to cut costs in building flatbed trailers. It had all the latest equipment in it.
Each flatbed trailer had about 40 manhours of labor in it when built in Indiana. The union workers in IN made about $12 per hour. The ones they hired in TN made about $6 per hour. The difference of about $240 cost per trailer (or about $500 retail) would have made Fruehauf competitive in that market again.
Unfortunately, the people in TN were never able to get the hours down to what they were in IN. Not even close. We are not just talking the startup phase. The plant was open for about 10-12 years after it was built, with several different owners trying their hand to reverse the losses. Last I read, it was closed down, never having made a profit.
...if Toyota is getting into Canada minus the auto union you can bet your paycheck that the CAW is going to drop down like a 500 Lb. monkey on their back in the not too distant future.
Toyota already operates a plant in Cambridge,Ont about 30 miles east of Woodstock.
Dec.12, 1986 Toyota announces it will build a plant in Cambridge, ON
Nov. 30, 1988 First car rolls off the line (Still on display in the Visitor Centre!)
Aug.13, 1992 Test Track Opens
Jan.13, 1998 Visitor Centre Opens
Sept. 22, 1999 TMMC manufactures its one-millionth vehicle
They have tried and failed to 'organize' Toyota's workers.
CAW Targets Toyota Employees (3/13/2005)
Toyota resists union effort April 8, 2005
Yea blame the schools ..right ..how about blame the dumb ass people down there ..love to know where some of these people come from and what kind od of backgrounds they have .
Watch the movie "The Grapes of Wrath" again. When they go into the diner to get bread and candy for the kids look on the wall behind the waitress. There is a sign offering a cup of coffee for 10¢ and a saucer of coffee for 5¢.
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