Toyota Motor said production at an assembly plant in southern China would remain idle for at least the day shift on Wednesday due to a strike at an affiliated auto parts supplier.
Operations at Toyota's plant in Guangzhou city have been halted since Tuesday due to a walkout at Denso (Guangzhou Nansha), a unit of Toyota-affiliated parts maker Denso Corp.
The dispute is the latest in a spate of labour unrest to hit foreign companies in China, which has highlighted growing discontent among millions of workers over low pay and poor conditions.
"Production at our factory in Guangzhou will be suspended for the morning shift today due to strike at a parts supplier," Tokyo-based Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.
The day shift at the factory in Guangdong province, China's manufacturing hub, finishes at 10:45 SA time and the company has not made any decision yet for the night shift, Nolasco said.
The strike at Denso (Guangzhou Nansha), which makes fuel injector and other components, started Monday when more than 200 employees stopped work and demanded higher pay, state media reported Tuesday.
Officials from the local government and labour union have been sent to the factory to help resolve the dispute, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The suspension came days after Toyota resumed operations at assembly lines of Tianjin FAW Toyota in the northern city of Tianjin, where production had been stopped briefly due to a three-day walkout at a plant run by Toyota-affiliated Tianjin Toyoda Gosei.
Toyota also has assembly plants jointly run with Chinese partners in Sichuan province in the southwest, but these have not been affected by the dispute, Toyota's Beijing-based spokesman Niu Yu said. - I-Net Bridge