Toyota Motor Corp. and its workers' union are far apart over wages and bonuses, the labor group's chairman said Tuesday.
"Our negotiation with the company is like a parallel line," Mitsuyuki Tsuruoka, head of the Toyota Motor Workers' Union, said. "We have had two rounds of negotiations so far, but there remains a big gap between us."
The comments reflect pushback by Toyota that run counter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for firms to raise wages. Abe's economic policies have weakened the yen and boosted earnings from exports and overseas sales, bolstering Toyota's forecast that profit for the fiscal year ending this month will hit a record ¥1.9 trillion.
Toyota's labor union, representing more than 50,000 workers, has proposed a net ¥4,000 average increase in monthly wages and annual bonuses valued at 6.8 months' salary, or just over ¥2.4 million. The wages being requested are "surprisingly high," Senior Managing Officer Naoki Miyazaki told reporters on Feb. 19.
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