Aisin Corp., a major Japanese car parts manufacturer, is worried a strike by the United Auto Workers against Detroit automakers would have a much broader impact, according to the company’s top US executive.
(Bloomberg) — Aisin Corp., a major Japanese car parts manufacturer, is worried a strike by the United Auto Workers against Detroit automakers would have a much broader impact, according to the company’s top US executive.
“We would see a direct impact,” Scott Turpin, president of Aisin’s US subsidiary said Wednesday. “If they were to shut down or idle their facilities, obviously that would curtail our shipments to them,” he said of General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV.
The UAW is threatening to strike at those two automakers, which together comprise about 7% of Aisin’s revenue, and at Ford Motor Co. if no deal on a new four-year labor contract is reached by Thursday night. Aisin’s US plants aren’t unionized, but Turpin said that may not spare them from the “ripple effect” of a prolonged work stoppage targeting the three legacy Detroit carmakers.
“We do purchase from companies that also are direct suppliers to the Big Three,” he said in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “We’ve got a handful of suppliers that are fragile, so we worry about what might happen to that supply base.”
Aisin, the world’s largest transmission manufacturer, is an affiliate of Toyota Motor Corp., which owns about 39% of its shares, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company says non-Toyota business accounts for around 15% of its total revenue.
(Corrects share of Aisin’s revenue from GM and Stellantis to around 7% in third paragraph.)
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