It was recently reported in The Wall Street Journal that when a plant is temporarily shut down at GM, Ford or Chrysler, workers receive most of their pay, but don't have to show up--this is spelled out in their union contracts.  On the other hand, at Toyota's US plants down time is used to put workers through a series of training sessions to improve their quality control and productivity skills and figure out better ways to assemble cars.  Jim Lentz, president of Toyota's US sales unit, says, "It would have been crazy for us to lose people for 90 days and then rehire and retrain them and hope that we have a smooth ramp-up coming back in."  This effective use of down time also sends employees at these Toyota plants a clear message that their company really does care about them.  As one assembly worker put it, "One of the major things that everyone is grateful for is that they [the company] thought enough of us to keep us here."  Talk about a novel idea!  Is it any wonder why Toyota is running circles around GM, Ford and Chrysler?- Ross / RossReck.com