Toyota Australia will attempt to renegotiate its workplace agreement with thousands of manufacturing staff at its Altona plant, in a bid to slash costs by $17 million next year.
It follows a similar move by Holden in August.
Staff at Toyota’s Altona plant were told by management on Thursday afternoon about the plan to cut some conditions, which the company said would provide “greater flexibility and [to] increase its global competitiveness”.
The demand to cut conditions comes just two weeks after the company said it would also offer up to 100 voluntary redundancies at Altona.
The existing workplace agreement at the Altona plant does not expire until 2015.
The company’s chief executive Max Yasuda met on Thursday with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to discuss the proposal.
“Everyone is working extremely hard to ensure Toyota’s long-term manufacturing future in Australia, but we must do more if we want to move towards being globally competitive,” Mr Yasuda said.
He said the proposed cut to some pay and conditions was needed if Toyota were to achieve its targets to lower costs.
“We need to improve our productivity and reduce the cost of each of our locally built vehicles by $3800 by 2018,” he said. “We have made progress [but] the speed of change has not been fast enough.”
Mr Yasuda said two scheduled pay rises next year at Toyota would still be honoured.
However, it appeared likely the size of these pay rises could be affected, and that some extra payments for tasks that now attracted payment might be cut back.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane is in Japan for talks with Toyota.
The move to cut some extra payments to staff made on top of their base wage follows a controversial pay freeze accepted by 2500 workers at Holden’s South Australian plant in August, in a bid to secure the car maker’s future in Australia past 2016.
Ford announced in May it would cease manufacturing in Australia from 2016.
Neither AMWU vehicles secretary Dave Smith nor ACTU secretary Dave Oliver could be reached for comment on Thursday afternoon about the proposed change to conditions for Toyota automotive staff.
The Productivity Commission is running an inquiry into the future of the Australian car industry, to report by December.
Federal opposition industry spokesman Kim Carr has warned the inquiry will come too late to save Holden from leaving the country.
Toyota employees will vote on the proposed change to their agreement in December.
