Is it true? Too many illiterate Americans or is America on Japan’s shitlist?
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained – and often illiterate – workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use “pictorials” to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
“The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario,” Fedchun said.
From this article:
Toyota to build 100,000 vehicles per year in Woodstock, Ont., starting 2008
05:01 AM EDT Jul 04
New President of Toyota Motor Corp. Katsuaki Watanabe said that the automaker plans to build a new plant in Canada. (AP/Shizuo Kambayashi)
STEVE ERWIN
WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) – Ontario workers are well-trained.
That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.
America is losing on so many fronts. I believe that we are so dumbed-down it will take years to smarten up.
But maybe more bible school educated kids will save us…..NOT!
Maybe more FOXnews watchers will get educated…NOT!
Maybe watching more reality shows will strengthen us…NOT!
Maybe if we spawn more moviestars, sport heroes, rock/rap stars followers we’ll be better off…NOT!
Maybe if we can start voting for real and really leave no child behind we could become America again….DAMN!
So why didn’t they look for plants in the north, west or midwest? The more generous state subsidies, I’m guessing, came from the states with the least qualified workers. I’d say that this is just proof that you really do reap what you sow, but that seems too glib. I feel very sorry for children growing up in communities where education isn’t supported or is the subject of political debate (as in debating whether evolution may be taught). Think of the options that will be denied them because of the decisions made by others. Very sad.
because of weak labor laws and almost no unions. I live in Canada, but am an American citizen. If the US implemented a comparable health care plan (even with the understanding that the Canadian plan has real flaws), US communities could compete on a level playing field. Companies could decrease what is spent on private insurance.
I heard the most productive automobile plants are in Canada — due because of government provided health coverage. This saves the automakers a bundle.
On the other hand, I think the Toyota plant in Kentucky is doing quite well — in fact, it just received the go ahead to build the new Toyota (Camry?) hybrid.
P.S. Those dumb hicks build 500,000 vehicles per year for Toyota:
GEORGETOWN, Ky., May 17, 2005; Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America (TMMNA) today announced the company’s first North American gas-electric hybrid production will be at its Georgetown, Ky., plant – Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) – when production of a Camry hybrid begins in late 2006.
TMMK will have the capacity to build approximately 48,000 Camry hybrid vehicles per year. The addition of hybrid production to TMMK will include a $10 million investment in the plant.
TMMK was established in 1986 and is Toyota’s largest plant in North America. It employs approximately 7,000 team members and currently builds the Camry, Avalon and Solara. The plant has the capacity to build 500,000 vehicles annually. Since its inception, TMMK has built nearly six million vehicles, and the plant’s current investment is nearly $5.3 billion.
4s for you too. Another news reader who reads with a critical eye. See my comments below on this story.
First we get Nafta, now Cafta, along with No Rich Child Left Behind?
There are only so many McDonalds, Burger Kings, etc, etc, for people to work at, hmmmmmm, what the hell are people going to do when it all comes down?
I can see people hearded like cattle into government complexes, to work on government projects, or new war machines, geeeesh, because the falling wage scale will not permit people to live in their own homes, have a vehicle, it’s a scary future in this looking glass in which we live.
I keep trying to slap myself hoping I will awaken from this nightmare, but so far all I’m getting is bruises!
in and of itself is not a bad thing. Take a look at the various projects that were undertaken during the New Deal — the WPA, the TVA, the CCC, the NRA, the Grand Coulee Dam, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Sure, some of them might have seemed like “make-work” projects, but there isn’t a state and probably few communities that weren’t touched by one of these Depression-era projects.
The rest of your point is well taken, though. I certainly don’t want the United States of 2010 looking like Eastern Europe of 1959, with cheerless citizens leaving their concrete beehives to work at thankless jobs managed by a hidebound bureaucracy.
point well taken, but this time instead of to help the people out of a depression, it will be to keep us opressed for their benefit ; )
The above projects you mentions were good solid infrastructure for our people, what may come will only be good for the wealthy, and corps.
An enlightened administration would be doing public works that benefit the common man instead of the privileged few. Ah, but that pretty well qualifies this administration out of consideration, doesn’t it?
that Toyota apparently didn’t consider states with a tradition of labor unions in manufacturing (MI, OH, IA, PA, IL,…).
(AFAIK the lack of unions was one of the big draws – along with subsidies – for foreign OEMs to set up plants in the South.)
I’ve seen a TV commercial by Toyota trumpeting the fact that they have plants in various US states. Indiana is one mentioned (I can’t remember the other ones).
We have powerful auto workers’ unions here in Canada. I can see Toyota locating in Ontario, which is the Canadian car manufacturing hub, because of the lower dollar and subsidies more than anything else. I’m surprised at the comment about literacy. I think that ought to be a wake up call.
if the newspapers are correct. The Detroit papers ran stories this past week saying that Toyota plans to open more plants in Ontario, given the success of their current operations there.
Maybe this is also a reason why so many US companies are outsourcing. Definitely not the only one, but it may play into that decision.
To me, this was pretty powerful statement
http://www.cbc.ca :
Public health care systems make countries more competitive.
More good news!
My husband and I have been informally tracking the poor language and grammar that have begun to infect screenwriting and ad copy. The first time we heard that “titanium is the world’s sharpest metal,” we nearly fell off the couch.
So, I want to hear again about how America is the greatest country in the whole, wide world.
That’s not surprising. It’s also not uncommon for state universities to offer remedial English and Reading courses, as increasingly too many students enter their first year unable to read or write at a college level. Heck, at the university where I’m currently employed we have students who easily have a couple semesters of intensive remedial coursework ahead of them before they are even qualified to enroll in freshman-level courses. The taxpayer gets to foot this bill as well, to the extent that state colleges and universities are tax-subsidized.
I don’t think any of my grandparents (save perhaps for my dad’s mom) ever completed high school, and they could read and write circles around a lot of today’s students. One of those grandparents left a farming life for work on an assembly line and later became a foreman. Not too shabby.
Letting our educational systems decay (more glaringly so in some states than in others) has been one of the hugest mistakes this country has made. I suppose having a barely literate society is one thing for a theocratic dictatorship, but it won’t fly in the long run if this nation is expected to remain a world leader in the information age.
I read this article this morning and was hoping someone would do a diary on it. The two major problems do seem to be that Americans are less/less educated than other major industrial countries(polls for years have shown we do lag behind) and the fact that once again the health care system here(a bit of a conundrum at this point)is not only not keeping Americans healthy-due to lack of health insurance-but effects us in being competitive for outside business interests. As many people have been saying for years, a national health care policy makes very good economic sense besides being a moral and a true ‘family values’ policy.
I don’t doubt for a minute the education level and not only in southern states. My nephew’s daughter who just graduated from 8th grade was passed on to go to high school. Yet here is the truly sickening part, her parents were called into the school and told she was reading at barely second grade level but they were going to pass here anyway. Second grade level. Since she can’t read it would seem obvious that all her other classes and her comprehension in them were not up to par-if you can’t read how could they be? This was not in the South but in Arizona.
The dumbing down was never more obvious to me than when I went to the Jr. college here. Classes in college for gods sake were teaching stuff I had learned in grade school(when I went to catholic school some 20 years before going to college in my 30’s). So while in grade school I was considered an average student at the college I ended up graduating in the top of my class….and much of what I ‘learned’ was a rehash of classes I may have had in 7th or 8th grade.
Also everyone starting college there had to take a placement test as it was found that over half maybe more incoming students needed remedial classes in reading, English, how to use library for research, etc before they could even take any college level(ha) classes. This was back in the 80’s and I can only imagine that education has degenerated even more-if possible.
I can also add one more story of degenerating education to this post. I know someone who has only a 9th grade education but most of that from catholic school and when they took the placement test at college scored some of the higest marks ever in the history of the college and didn’t have to do any remedial classes-even though they only had a 9th grade education. Very sad commentary on the state of our education.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that we are turning into a nation of ‘Mcsinotels’..meaning all the jobs are going to be fast food/casinos and motels-keeping everyone poor except for the few running things.
“He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained – and often illiterate – workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use “pictorials” to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.”
“The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario,” Fedchun said.”
Worst possible examples of the tragically flawed American education system (next to California, where I live) but wonder why these two states are the only options for the Japanese to open automobile plants. next to Ontario?
Why not try Michigan? Not only do they have a better education system, but they are the heirs of the failed US auto industry and are EVEN closer to Canada?
Mississippi and Alabama consistently rank among the states with the poorest educational systems. I believe Mississippi is, if not dead last, close to it.
It sounds to me as if Toyota was hoping to take some advantages: get state subsidies plus have a compliant work force. As others have said, the company didn’t try to build in states with traditions of strong workers’ rights and/or better educational levels.
not on the factory floor. Why are Republican businessmen putting their anti-life ideology ahead of profits? Is it so painful to admit that consumers who can afford it are willing to pay extra for fuel efficient hybrids? Is a single american auto manufacturer getting into future tech the way the Japaneese and Koreans are? No.
This comment, about illiterate Americans, was made by Gerald Fedchun, head of the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturing Association. He’s one of the people who has been working to get Toyota to place the plant in Canada. He can hardly be expected to say anything positive about workers in the U. S.!
Do you really think any Toyota executive would say something so inflammatory about citizens of a country so important to their sales? Highly unlikely!
Please attribute this statement properly. There is another diary posted on DKos on this subject that also contains misinformation about this quote.
I’m not denying the poor state of education in many areas of the U.S. However, we cannot state categorically that Canadian education is in every way superior. I think other factors went into the Toyota decision: not having to pay for employee health care, and possibly having a more cooperative union atmosphere, for example.
Ah! Congratulations. You read the news critically. For that? I’ll give you a four! See my comments below.
Excellent comments above. I thought I’d just add my perspective because, living in Mississippi, I’ve seen the whole sorry mess happen. First, the state of Mississippi gave away hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to get the Nissan plant in Canton, MS (Canton is just north of Jackson, in central Mississippi). Then they went through some serious eminent domain robbery to gain the land for the site. Now that the plant has been open for a while, all the politicians claim how great it is. It was a recent site for one of those bamboozle-palooza Social Security rallies. It did give us some more non-union jobs, but I’m not sure that the state will see any fiscal benefit from it for many, many years.
The education problem in Mississippi is huge. The real problem that NO ONE is talking about is that the education systems in Mississippi are de facto segregated. The whites go to private schools or homeschool. The blacks and poorest whites are left to an inadequately funded public system. Everyone loses when the “popular” sentiment is that “taxes are too high”, “those teacher’s unions are evil”, and “jeez those teachers get the whole summer off to get another job – why should we pay them a full years salary?”. And Hollow Bubba (oops, I mean Haley Barbour), our Guv’na, is making everything worse – giving away incentives to businesses while taking it away from Medicaid and other social programs.
Everyone loses. We have poorly educated TEACHERS who are WAY WAY WAY UNDERPAID in the public school systems – so we get the blind leading the blind. The private schools pay teachers LESS than the public system, so you can understand what kind of quality we’re attracting there. The middle class and richer whites go to schools that homogenize and pasteurize them. The blacks and poor whites go to poor schools with poor facilities and poor teachers and get poor education.
Nobody with any power really gives a damn, though. They get to send their kids to the few good private schools, and keep the taxes low so that the public schools are kept underfunded. The problem is a racist problem, because the powerful whites won’t vote any taxes to support the predominantly black public schools.
And the beat goes on….
[Sorry for the rant, but it just all came out that way. I wish I had a suggestion for improving it, but I feel helpless and hopeless – hence the rant.]
Your diary utilizes a source that states:
WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) – Ontario workers are well-trained.
That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.
This statement doesnt seem to have been said by anyone with Toyota Motor Company. Seems that statement, not even bracketed in quotes by the way, was from “Industry experts”. No attribution by name, no quote marks. I see other unsubstantiated statements in the piece too, many by Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association of Canada, who I am sure is a completely disinerested source when it comes to Canadian vs American hosting of offshore-owned auto manufacturing plants.
An example of Mr Fedchun’s disinterest:
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained – and often illiterate – workforce.
I’m quite open to the idea that Americans might be too illiterate to build Toyotas. But I don’t believe everything I read. A good source would prove it. Your source contains no proof of this illiteracy at all. It seems to me to be mostly opinion and subtle innuendo. Oh, and some not-so-subtle innuendo:
In Alabama, trainers had to use “pictorials” to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
Just look at the use of the word “pictorials” in the piece and tell me someone isn’t honing an axe here. Pictorials??? I’m sorry but that’s nothing but a not-so-subtle hint at a stereotype.
Does the story have any unchallenged assumptions? Oh yes it does, quite a few. I’ve just listed 3 of them. Do the headline and the story match? Oh well, there’s at least a picture of the president of Toyota to go with the word Toyota in the headline. But what exactly does the president of Toyota say in the article? Nothing. Where are the Toyota corporation quotes? Not to be found. The headline is false and the photo bears no relation to the voices speaking in the piece.
Your source leaves much to be desired and IMHO is lacking in all respects, except as an example of very bad journalism.
not those of us who often snarkily share it.
but you arent reading critically
I hear what you are saying and personally appreciate your point.
I post diaries mostly for “Food for Thought” some readers ‘get’ and understand my tactic some don’t.
i’d love to hear. care to explain?
When I read something that surprises me and causes me to wonder, or angers or confirms my ‘sensitivities’ I copy and paste and make my sarcasm, shock or awe comments known. I don’t connect all the dots hoping others may get interested enough to ‘check the facts’ or not, to prove or disprove, but most of all to THINK. Period.
I am so sick of the dumbed down populace, of BUSHCO and corporate America, the lack of real news, the entertainment and reality-show mentality etc., and this article which refers to Illiteracy by whoever, is my point, my issue. Why are there so many illiterate people in the ‘greatest country on earth’? I don’t give a shit about Toyota.
As for your obvious good critical thinking/editing skills, may I suggest that you not waste them on small potatoes like me and use them to expose FOX NYT WAPO BUSHCO’s ROVE and the mainstream media. That’s where critical editing is severely lacking and desperately needed.
And thanks for giving me a chance to explain my motives and method:-)
i have little use at all for much of the corporate media. all they do is sell our eyeballs to advertisers. IMHO content isn’t what’s sold anymore.
funny though, although i saw your source clearly, i misread you 100%. (according to the style books, snarkiness/cynicism is very difficult to translate clearly into the written word). this is probably due to faults of my own, but even in misreading i did not see you as “small potatoes”. you feel strongly about what you publish. i’m looking forward to reading some more with critial eye, of course.
and I guess one could say I lean/learn more with a cynical eye;-)
(but then I do have a quirky sense of humor) And I am delighted to add you to my not too dumbed-down List- of which I am also a member..”We get too soon old and too late Smart”
Unfortunately we’ve all been dumbed-down to some extent (and if not, prove it LOL!)
of oppression and exploitation. Statistics and data were manipulated and used to justify the creation of the policy No Child Left Behind. Now we actually are dumbing down our education with strict, standardized testing.
I agree with bayprairie. Read other sources, read between the lines, before assuming the worse about American workers.
I can think of another much more important reason to build a plant in Canada: their’s is a healthier economy not ravaged by an unnecessary war.