Dive Brief:
- Toyota Motor North America on Tuesday raised autoworkers’ wages, a Toyota spokesperson confirmed in an email without elaborating on details.
- Labor Notes, which first reported the news citing two Toyota employees familiar with the matter, said the company also shortened the time required to earn top pay from eight to four years. The company spokesperson did not confirm the wage scale changes.
- The automaker is raising wages from $31.86 to $34.80 per hour for production workers, a 9.2% increase, and from $39.50 to $43.20 for skilled trades, a 9.4% increase, Labor Notes reported.
Dive Insight:
The news comes days after the United Auto Workers union struck tentative labor agreements with General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, ending the UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers.
Experts told Automotive Dive the landmark UAW deals might compel nonunion automakers, including Toyota and Tesla, to offer workers better wages and benefits in North America, even if their plants are not unionized. Autoworkers employed by nonunion manufacturers might also seek to organize their plants after the UAW won big concessions from the Detroit Three, according to experts.
The tentative agreements with GM, Ford and Stellantis, which still need approval from UAW-represented autoworkers, feature a 25% base wage increase over four-and-a-half years, reduce the time it takes to become a top earner from eight to three years, restore cost-of-living adjustments and add the ability to strike against plant closures.
Toyota autoworkers at the top of the pay scale would now earn comparable wages to skilled trades workers at the Detroit Three, who can earn more than $40 per hour under the tentative agreements. But it would also take them an additional year to achieve the top rate.
“We value our employees and their contributions, and we show it by offering robust compensation packages that we continually review to ensure that we remain competitive within the automotive industry,” Chris Reynolds, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of corporate resources at Toyota Motor North America, said in an emailed statement.
