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TOKYO (AFP) –
Toyota's president swapped his business suit for a worker's uniform Friday as he sought to reassure workers and urge them to make a fresh start following the automaker's global mass recall crisis.
"The current problem of quality has yet to be solved, and we have a mountain of work to do," Akio Toyoda said after the Japanese giant pulled more than eight million cars worldwide to repair accelerator and brake defects.
Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota's founder, was speaking with at times teary eyes and a choked voice about his trip to the United States where he testified in a congressional panel, spoke to Toyota staff and appeared on CNN.
"I was feeling lonely as Toyota was being criticised repeatedly on TV and in newspapers, and I was being chased by the media," he said.
"In the United States, there was the language barrier, and I am not certain how much I could get across. Anyway, I want them to acknowledge that Toyota has changed through the current problem."
The 53-year-old executive said he saw the day of his congressional roasting and repeated apologies as a turning point.
"We must make February 24, the day of the hearing, the day for Toyota to restart. We must do away with our past experience of success and reconsider the value of our existence with resolve," he said.
Wearing an ash-grey jacket like the rows of workers before him, he promised to "work hard to improve ourselves to regain our customers' confidence".
The meeting, dubbed the "all-Toyota emergency meeting toward Toyota's restart", was attended by 2,000 employees, dealers and parts suppliers at the company headquarters outside Nagoya, central Japan.
Other Toyota executives also spoke at the Toyota City mass meeting which was beamed live to offices nationwide in a video conference.
The president noted he had felt encouraged by the Toyota factory workers and dealers he met in the United States.
"I had been thinking I was striving to protect those people, but I realised I was actually being protected by them. I was deeply moved and thought I was really lucky to be a member of Toyota," he said.
Toyota executives in Washington this week ended a third marathon hearing before US lawmakers over their handling of the safety defects, which have been blamed for more than 50 deaths.
Toyota reported an 8.7 percent drop in February US sales amid the recalls, most of them involving accelerator systems blamed for sudden spikes in speed.
Amid the company's unprecedented crisis, Toyota's leading Japanese labour union said Wednesday it would cancel an annual spring rally for higher wages out of consideration for the automaker's woes.
Japanese media have meanwhile reported that the workers will get their customary annual wage increases, which would be an average 7,100 yen (80 dollars) each per month, in line with the union's demand.
