Toyota allows dismissed workers to stay for 1 month in dorm

Thursday 18th December, 06:38 AM JST

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Samuraiiki at 10:27 AM JST - 18th December

Reduce maintenance, utility, and operational costs. A society run merely with profits in mind eventually has its problems.
Dogdog at 10:32 AM JST - 18th December

A very forseeable problem, when the government shifted the responsibility of the basics of social care of citizens to the company, instead of resolving it themselves because they're busy playing 'Bigboys' on the world international stage.

The companies should have been taxed more and the revenue should have been spent on building cheap public housing whose occupancy was dependent on employment.
GJDailleult at 11:31 AM JST - 18th December

If they are cutting staff then they obviously don't need the rooms for new staff. Either the laid-off workers stay in the rooms or they go empty. This should have been a no-brainer from the start for Toyota, not that one month is much either.
Asara at 01:08 PM JST - 18th December

I urge toyota to provide them with psychiatrists and free lunch during that time. Because as usual companies toyota definately licked their blood for years and converted that into comfortable soft cushions to spoil upper management staffs also maybe for some geisha fees etc...
anshin at 02:25 PM JST - 18th December

I urge toyota to provide them with psychiatrists and free lunch during that time. Because as usual companies toyota definately licked their blood for years and converted that into comfortable soft cushions to spoil upper management staffs also maybe for some geisha fees etc...

So, Asara can you give us a link, or some other proof of your statement?
dennis0bauer at 03:24 PM JST - 18th December

One month only? and they think they will get a job in just one month?
floyd_43 at 05:52 PM JST - 18th December

Sorry to sound incredibly cruel, but Toyota is NOT a scoial services organisation! Its NOT Toyota's responsibility to take care of laid-off workers! Its tough, but that's the way it goes! Can you imagine any company in Europe or the US even providing its part-time workers with cheap company accomodation in the first place?!
escape_artist at 06:56 PM JST - 18th December

floyd_43, you do sound incredibly cruel, and apparently blinded by the belief that somehow companies exist in a vacuum, in a closed-self-loop, separate and distinct from the rest of society that they naturally interact with, giving but usually doing a lot more taking.

No one is asking for companies, especially pseudo-environmental megafirms like Toyota, to create a department of social services in their company org chart. But at the same time, these kinds of companies DO have a responsibility to societies they are part of, above and beyond their usual CSR rhetoric, too (which for many companies is nothing more than fodder for good-paying, gushingly written copywriting jobs). Especially since Toyota provided many of these folks jobs and housing -- however "non-regular" they were being labeled (since such categorizing is done solely for companies', not workers', benefit) -- in a society that is still (however unrealistically) used to or at least longing for out-dated traditions like lifetime employment, one month is nice, better than 3 days!, but likely far, far inadequate for these fired workers to find comparable jobs, and possibly, housing as well.

As long as those in power in any society that functions according to capitalist, "free"-market theories latch onto the above mindset of how people and companies interrelate, and just continue on with the blinders on as if their company is not an integral part of the society around them, then the problem highlighted in this Kyodo snippet will become an increasingly bigger and bigger problem & social issue. In general, it's not in the nature of companies, whose theoretical goal is to always seek greater & greater profits, to think of their employees as anything BUT the means to the shareholders' & executives' ends, as cogs in the big hamster wheel most workers are forced to race. And I've found this to be especially true in companies in Japan, where so many managers just don't seem to have a clue how to manage nor how to interact in positive ways with & for their employees, and worse, not any desire to better things for everyone involved.

I think a big reason many of the capitalist societies like the U.S. are in such deep doo-doo now, affecting the entire world to boot, is partly precisely such slavish devotion to the attitude you espouse here, of profits over people, and the notion that the purpose of peoples' -- OUR -- very existence is merely to serve the companies and those who run them. Back a$$wards, if you ask me, at least if a functioning, sustainable society that is fair & just for all is the goal.
some14some at 11:19 PM JST - 18th December

Profit thirsty Toyota providing 30 days free stay to workers? shameful !
usaexpat at 12:49 AM JST - 19th December

30 days and then out on the street. Where exactly will these workers go then?
Nessie at 02:22 PM JST - 19th December

I'd love to see how those dorm rooms look after the month.
helloklitty at 02:54 PM JST - 19th December

i guess that about covers the hundreds (thousands?) of hours of free overtime they worked
mareo2 at 02:58 PM JST - 19th December

In my opinion they ex-employes can pay a rent to the companies from their own savings until they get a new job and can move to another housing. Is really dificult find a job right now and if they dont get a job after a a month they have no way of get housing without a job. I saw a lot of people moving with relatives, friends or just joining the homeless under the highway and is not just single people, I am talking about entire families. Now, imagine kids living in a blue tent under the snow.
unscrejects at 03:49 PM JST - 19th December

CNC These temps were actually regulars who had their status changed without their knowledge - a common practice out here. Toyota will continue to draw the government subsidy for providing housing to employees. So even in depression the company still weasels an extra yen out of the worker - and the worker also gets docked from his last pay - plus the company's HR 'help' the worker apply for unemployment benefits and take a 'helpers' fee. Nasty industry it definitely is. Now how can the big three compete?
kokuryu at 06:52 AM JST - 24th December

Well now that the government stepped in and is allowing people to move into rent reduced apartments for other jobless people, this should help ease Toyota's burden. But just 3 days originally? Pretty bad...