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
Sad but true...and it's not confined to "down there".
I currently live in a very rural area of the Western Catskill Mountains (northern extension of the Appalacian Mountain chain) of New York State. While the schools are not the very best (but by no means the very worst either), it is really the area's culture that keeps the kids down. The kids often come from homes where alcoholism or other forms of abuse are rampant, they are not read to as young children, there are no books in the house to stimulate their mind and imagination, they are not exposed to museums or other forms of cultural enlightenment, and are brought up in front of the t.v. cum nanny.
The very brightest do somehow manage to escape for advanced education or economic opportunity never to return to pass on their collective wisdom and experience. The majority of those who remain are bitter and whine about the lack of economic opportunity, drowning their sorrows in booze and drugs...and the beat goes on.
Perhaps to demonstrate your own fine education better, that sentence should be re-written: "One's signature alone [remove "it"] shows that person's level of education." Nouns which are in the possessive form require an apostrophe...
The workers are the ones picking up the tab, through higher taxes to fund the healthcare. That $4 or $5 advantage over U.S. workers is probably true when comparing us with almost any other country.
Doubtful, if they can't read articles like this one.
Oh, I dunno. $20 US is $24.84 Canadian.
Or are you one of those illiterates you wrote a screed about?
I would gladly invite anyone to Google up Felos's association with Scientology, and the whole panoply of his bizzare views, and contrast that with the corporate reputation of Toyota, and then decide who is making irresponsible accusations.
Speak for yourself.
BUMP
Mississippi and Alabama.
I think it's more of a racist thing here due to the black community culture of success = white thing.
While English is not my primary, me thinks I can allow my self not to be perfect and proper.
Not to mention my hate for grammar.
Your whole attitude just screams "Elitist". I'm sure that the most of the country can't measure up to your high standards of education and behavior.
Perhaps you should move to France where you will be surrounded by those of equal stature.
Its not elitism to expect excellence. Besides, I was simply pointing out that the folks who think they're so "supur-i-or" to the "furners and Mexcuns" should look at themselves before they start putting down other people. As for myself, I acknowledge that my sh-t stinks like everyone else.
Moral is: Toyota doesn’t give a damn about our theories about how the world outta’ work.
They had a choice: locate in place that was attempting to compete on the basis of lower-cost labor and a “business-friendly” environment, sweetened with larger initial financial benefits, or in a place with higher commitment to developing “human capital” and offering a better-educated workforce and substantial social safety net (for example, heath care will be provided by the government).
Toyota did the numbers, decided that the latter is a better long-term deal for them, and they don’t care that we think the reverse ought to be true. And they didn't do it because they were butch of bleeding heart liberals or socialist, ideologues - this was a decision by the "market";, a hardheaded capitalist enterprise deciding which arrangement was better for their business.
And that's why this sort of thing goes down so hard: it's a case of a profit-driven capitalist entity “voting with it's feet” against what most Americans perceive as the most “market driven” system in the Western world.
Now perhaps Canada “paid too much” for this plant – I don’t know.
But what is apparent is that Canada “out-bid” several locations in the US on the basis of a set of “competitive advantages” quite different that the ones we offered – advantages that if they are pivotal to international competition are advantages we are either disinclined to provide or which would take a considerable amount of time to create if we decide we do need to supply them.
Perhaps this is the case is the case only for large scale manufacturing - if so such a situation is not much of a problem (in terms of economic effect rather than “national prestige”, anyway).
Or, maybe this is specific to the case of Toyota only (though it’s hard to see why this would be so).
But if this keeps happening over the next decade – and especially if it starts happing with high-end “services” – we are going to a have to find some way to remain competitive.
And if the plan is to win the race to the bottom we are going to lose: we will never (I hope, anyway) have worse paid workers, or less environmental regulation, than China.
Instead we are going to have to find some way to insure that substantial part of increased productivity is devoted to improving workforce quality.
And this, I think, is where the problem is. Most of the people I have met who worked in a Japanese owned business hated it. Rural southerners, both black and white, value independence above all else. They prefer land and a trailer to a big home in the burbs on a half acre plot. They do not want to become slaves to a job or mortgage and will tell a supervisor where to go if he begins to act like he owns them. As far as illiteracy is concerned, look at the demographics of the counties surrounding the Mississippi plant. Three of the counties just north of the plant lead the state in high school dropouts, teen pregnancy, and welfare recipients (Part of Dem. Benny Thompson's congressional district).
And Americans will be stupid enough to buy those stinking Toileta riceburners.
Toyota does not have a union. Although the CAW is trying hard to get in there. The plant they now have in Cambridge, Ontario has been without the CAW since it opened.
The workers are very happy without them. Go figure!
it's also a very conservative riding.
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