An Industrial Nirvana

Earlier this year Ward's Auto World, a respected industry magazine, surveyed Detroit engineers and discovered that nearly half of them thought that the Japanese build better cars than Americans. When asked why, the experts cited the high quality of the labor that goes into the autos and the Japanese worker's strong attachment to his job.

TIME Tokyo Bureau Chief Edwin Reingold covered the American auto industry as Detroit bureau chief from 1971 to 1978. Since then he has been head of the magazine's Tokyo office. Reingold has toured Japanese auto factories and last week sent this report:

They no longer sing the company song before each work shift at Toyota and other Japanese auto plants, but the workers do have 5 to 10 min. of calisthenics and get a briefing on the day's work schedule before plunging spiritedly into their jobs. Japanese autoworkers are imbued with a sense of mission, a sense that doing a good job is important to them, to their union, to their families and to their nation. Worker alienation is almost unheard of, and sabotage is unknown. Coke bottles do not rattle in the doors of Toyotas as they sometimes do in Detroit products; a handful of nuts does not clang inside a Datsun wheel cover; keys do not break in the locks. There are no Monday Hondas or Datsuns.

Instead, workers and management share the same objectives. Each plant has its white-collar and blue-collar quality-control circles, in which three to ten employees meet on their own time to analyze the standards of work and ways to improve the product. The rewards for usable ideas are mostly psychological. Unlike General Motors' high-paying suggestion program, which offers employees up to $10,000 for useful innovations, a Japanese firm's award of $600 for a patentable idea is considered generous. At Nissan, maker of Datsun, an original proposal is usually rewarded with a ballpoint pen or a company button. From the president on down, nobody is too proud to wear the nondescript gray company smock or a lapel pin with the corporate emblem.

Though trade unionism is widespread, it is passive by U.S. standards. Job classifications are loosely defined, and workers will do any task, even sweeping the floor, without prodding, loss of face or initiating a grievance procedure with the union. The goal of labor-management relations was enunciated by Japan's premier industrialist, Konosuke Matsushita, founder of the company that makes Panasonic electrical products: "Harmony over opposition." The last strike, at Toyota in 1955, involved a fight over reducing the work force. The dispute was concluded when the entire board of directors resigned in apology. Wages increased 212% from 1970 to 1978, and when benefits are included, the average autoworker now earns about $9 per hour, vs. $17 for his U.S. counterpart.

Japanese companies guarantee lifetime jobs, listen to workers' suggestions or complaints and share their good times and bad. During a slump, executives take large pay cuts along with the workers. Unlike Detroit, there are no huge bonuses that sometimes push executives' salaries close to $1 million a year.

This sense of duty is not readily understood by foreigners. Last week Takuya Sakai, 53, captain of the Fuji Maru, a ship carrying Subaru cars to the U.S., discovered upon docking at Los Angeles harbor for refueling that more than 200 of the autos were damaged by water leaks in the cargo hold. Considering himself responsible for the accident, Sakai attempted to commit harakiri. When that failed, he slit his throat.

Few of Japan's auto plants, however, are marvels of design like the Volkswagen plant built two years ago in New Stanton, Pa., or some of the other new and redesigned American factories. The Toyota operations in Toyota City near Nagoya are noisy, dark and cramped. At 60 cars per hour, the assembly lines do not even approximate the blistering 100-car-an-hour pace once set by GM's Lordstown, Ohio, line. But the slower speeds allow workers more time for the job at hand, and as a result the parts fit snugly and the screws are tight. Each Toyota worker is also a kind of one-man inspection unit. If he sees something amiss, he can pull a red cord that stops the whole assembly line. Until recently, any U.S. worker who halted the assembly line was courting dismissal.

The Japanese are not only fussy about the workmanship at the plant; they are also meticulous about the cars they buy. Customers will refuse delivery of a new car that has a stray smudge of grease or a crooked seat seam. All U.S. cars and most foreign ones must be repainted before they hit local showrooms so that they will conform to higher quality standards. When Chevrolet sent its first Citation X-car to Japan for inspection, the company got back an embarrassing list of 105 defects that had to be corrected before the car could be sold there.

In the past, Japanese autos have been cosmetically perfect but technically conventional. Detroit has been far ahead in the development of stronger and lighter metals, the application of plastics and the use of electronics. The Japanese, though, have moved fast to adopt features such as clocks or electrically adjustable side mirrors on their cars, and these are made standard equipment rather than high-priced options.

Japanese automakers have a genuine respect for Detroit's ability to turn out technologically superior cars, and many admit to some nervousness now that the American firms are becoming serious about producing small cars. In fact, no one will be watching the market performance of Detroit's new cars closer than automen in the executive suites of Toyota, Nissan and Honda.

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