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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2009
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Toronto
Star
business reporter Brett Popplewell noted
that in many cases the Canadian unions have been
offering workweek concessions to management.
Wayne Fraser, Ontario director of the United Steel-
workers union, estimates that thousands of workers in
Canada’s steel industry are voluntarily working reduced
hours, just as they did during the last recession.
Mr Fraser told the
Star
, “We’ve got a lot of our plants on
job sharing right across Ontario.”
The announcement by US Steel Serbia of a cutback
❖
❖
in working hours provides an instance of American
influence on European practice. As reported in the
International Herald Tribune
, company spokesman
Nemanja Brkovic said that workers at the plant in
Smederevo, some 20 miles northeast of Belgrade,
are working a four-day week. For putting in 32 hours
instead of 40, the 9,000 employees are paid 60% of
their usual wages.
No layoffs have been announced at the plant, which
accounted for about 15% of total Serbian exports before
output was curtailed in response to falling demand for
its strip steel products. The decision by the subsidiary of
US Steel (Pittsburgh) to cut working hours has prompted
the Serbian government to consider instituting the
measure at similarly underutilised state-run companies.
Automotive
Ambitious Toyota retools its upscale
Prius to appeal to the averagely virtuous
American buyer
Toyota Motor Corp, of Japan, has sold more than 1.27 million
Priuses worldwide since the elite hybrid’s debut in 1997.
Now, the third-generation Prius is the product of more than
4
1
/
2
years of effort to turn the renowned ‘eco-icon,’ rated at
50 miles to a gallon of gasoline, into a mainstream car.
Now, the world’s largest car company by sales is rolling out
the new-model Prius – bigger, more powerful, lower-priced
($22,000 and up) – in the huge United States market, where
early reviews have been more than enthusiastic.
If the remodelled Prius meets with the same success in the
US as in Japan where, in May, it was the best-selling car in
the country, Toyota will have pulled off a second remarkable
feat of rowing against the tide.
While the economic recession has been roughly twice
as severe in Japan as in the US, domestic demand for
the Prius is surging. Even with production ramped up to
50,000 cars a month, the waiting time for a Japanese Prius
buyer is three to four months.
Writing from Toyota City, Japan, in the
Washington Post
,
Blaine Harden reported that Toyota is framing its US
campaign in terms of the appeal the retooled Prius holds
for the average car buyer – as distinguished from the earlier,
and wealthier, customer for the righteous hybrid with stellar
fuel economy.