Japan’s Toyota Motor said its largest assembly plant in China had to be suspended Friday after a strike at an affiliated auto parts supplier in the country had halted production.
The walkout at the plant in northern China run by Tianjin Toyoda Gosei that makes interior and exterior plastic parts follows a strike earlier this week at a door parts factory run by the same Toyota-affiliated supplier.
“All the three assembly lines of Tianjin FAW Toyota have been suspended since mid-day on Friday,” Tokyo-based Toyota spokeswoman Mieko Iwasaki told AFP.
Tianjin FAW Toyota is the automaker’s largest joint venture in China, with more than 12,000 workers.
The strike at Tianjin Toyoda Gosei began Thursday when about 40 workers at the 1,700-employee factory demanded pay rises, a spokesman for the joint venture which runs the factory told AFP.
“We are continuing negotiations… We are doing our best so that this will not trouble our customers,” he said.
Toyota’s rival Honda has already been hit by strikes in recent weeks that have put a spotlight on complaints about low pay and long hours for millions of migrant workers in China.
Honda offered a 24 percent pay rise to staff at its main parts factory to end a strike, while employees at a plant making locks and key sets agreed to go back to work this week as negotiations on wages continues.
Toyota also has assembly plants jointly run with Chinese partners in Guangdong province in southern China and Sichuan province in the southwest.
