Some autoworkers get payouts
$1,000-$10,000 profit-sharing checks from Asian automakers are a stark contrast to domestic firms.

Need more evidence of the shifting fortunes of the Detroit autoworker? Look at the bonuses, or lack of bonuses, being distributed on the factory floor.

Some Asian automakers are showering U.S. plant workers with bonuses averaging up to $10,000 while Detroit's two biggest carmakers have scrapped profit-sharing checks this year because of mounting automotive losses.

Toyota Motor Corp., with profits and market share soaring, awarded each of its 5,600 hourly employees at its largest U.S. plant in Georgetown, Ky., an average of $10,131 for 2005. The plant builds the Camry, the best-selling car in the nation.

Honda Motor Co. doled out an average $4,923 to 10,000 associates at its four major Ohio plants. And 1,587 workers at Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.'s Subaru plant in Indiana received a holiday gift worth $1,000.

Those payouts are in stark contrast to General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., who because of financial hardships resulting in impending plant closures and massive layoffs, aren't doling out profit-sharing payouts this year.

In addition to missing out on any bonuses, active workers at GM and Ford will forgo a portion of their scheduled pay increase in September to help fund health care coverage for retirees.

"It's clearly a reflection of how much more the Japanese companies have tended to be more profitable in recent years," said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank.

DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group -- the lone Detroit company making money in North America -- is awaiting its 2005 fourth-quarter results next week before making an announcement, said Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines.

Last year, Chrysler paid out profit-sharing checks to 70,000 U.S. factory workers that averaged $1,500.

But with Chrysler's operating profits up 6 percent to $1.3 billion through the first three quarters of 2005, the automaker is on track to pay similar profit-sharing checks this year.

Yet the checks employees could receive when the company closes its 2005 financial books won't match Toyota and Honda, or even the $8,000 Chrysler once gave workers.

The wide disparity in bonuses mirror what's happening in the marketplace, said Patrick Anderson, principal at Anderson Economic Group, a consulting firm in Lansing.

"Toyota's reflect a string of fabulous years, GM has been losing money and Ford is struggling," Anderson said. "That's the reality in the marketplace. Toyota has been on a sensational sales streak in the U.S., gaining market share."

For Honda, 2005 marked the 20th consecutive year the company has paid out bonuses. At Toyota, U.S. workers have received bonuses for 16 straight years.

On Tuesday, Toyota reported a 34 percent profit increase during the quarter that ended Dec. 31. The automaker expects to sell 7.95 million vehicles in the fiscal year ending March 31, up from 7.4 million units the previous year.

And Honda, riding the success of its latest Civic and popular Accord sedans, foresees a repeat.

"We've been amply profitable for the first three quarters of (fiscal 2006) so we expect another bonus sharing this year," said Honda spokesman Ed Miller.

Honda factors safety, quality and sales performance when determining bonuses. Toyota uses a worker's hourly wage when computing its bonus, which is distributed twice a year and includes a discretionary bonus.

"They're earning it," said Allen Nielsen, a Ford engineer at the automaker's Lorain plant in Ohio, when he learned how much Toyota and Honda workers were receiving. "It's tough being an autoworker out there. A lot of people don't realize how hard of a job this is."

Nielsen said GM and Ford had opportunities to defend their turf over the years but "they got sidetracked."

Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said the steep bonuses offered by Toyota and Honda will add enough to their hourly pay of about $24 to essentially match wages at Detroit automakers, which hover at a base of about $26 for an assembly worker.

Toyota, Honda and Subaru aren't the only companies in the industry cutting checks.

Nissan Motor Co., BMW and Mercedes-Benz are handing out bonuses to U.S. workers, but declined to disclose the payouts.

"It's always a percentage based on a target system," said BMW spokeswoman Bunny Richardson. "You have plant targets, department targets and personal targets. It's not like everybody gets $1,000 or everybody gets $10,000."

BMW's employs 4,500 workers at its South Carolina plant.

Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co., aiming to reach 1 million U.S. sales by 2010, did not give workers bonuses at its new Montgomery, Ala., plant last year. Spokesman Kerry Christopher said workers cranked out 92,000 units in 2005. The objective was about 120,000.

Mitsubishi Motors also did not award a bonus.

Locally, said Johnson of Comerica Bank, the absence of profit-sharing checks serves as an economic barometer. Retailers are already seeing soft sales partly because autoworkers have no checks to cash in.

"Everybody's seeing the loss of the income and people are spending cautiously wherever they can," Johnson said.