Employees of Toyota Motor Corporation in Australia went on strike on Friday.

The 48-hour strike occurred due to a salary dispute, said a Wall Street Journal report.

Around 3,000 workers deserted their work posts at the plant, also affecting parts distribution centers in Sydney and Melbroune.

A Toyota spokeswoman confirmed that production at the company's Altona plant in Victoria had stopped. The plant produces Camry and Aurion models.

"I'm at Toyota at the moment in Altona and there is no production today," Spokeswan Lauren Hill said.

"We won't be producing any cars today and it's highly likely that the strike action will continue tomorrow."

According to Ms. Hill, Toyota has offered Toyota employees an 11 per cent wage increase over 39 months, but the workers' union was did not like the manner with which the increased would be delivered.

"We've been willing to discuss the wage offers with the unions, however we haven't been successful in coming to an agreement with the unions and employees on our enterprise bargaining agreement."

Dave Smith, acting national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union vehicle division, said workers were concerned their last pay rise was in April last year. He added that the workers felt that under the company's offer, they would only be getting a small increase in September. The union also observed that the offer had no provision for back-pay, and that it would take for 39 months, and not three years, according to the WSJ report.

Domino Effect

Ms. Hill said that the industrial action has a "domino effect" suppliers and their employees, as well as Toyota dealers. It will also hurt Toyota's reputation.

"The flow-on effect of this is very significant," she said.

"When we look at our export business, we started exporting to the Middle East in 1996 and since then we've never missed an export shipment of vehicles to go (and) this industrial action threatens our reliability in terms of our export business."

Glenn Campell of Toyota Australia, explained to the ABC News, that the employee strike will cost $10 million dollars a day. He added that it will have grave repercussions on the company's export program.

"Toyota must compete with Toyota plants around the world for the right to build cars and to supply export markets," remarked Campbell.

"We're already under severe competitive disadvantage and this is due to the currency, high local costs and reduced volumes."

"Industrial action at this time, really can only hurt Toyota Australia's case to maintain its export program."

Toyota Australia Chief Executive Max Yasuda said in a statement earlier this week the strikes would cause "significant short-term pain and have long-term consequences for suppliers, dealers and customers."

The company said that the Altona factory produces 559 cars a day, and exports 70% of its annual production, mostly to the Middle East. In 2010, the plant produced more than 119,000 vehicles.

"If Australian operations are uncompetitive and perceived as unreliable, these cars can be made in another Toyota plant. It puts a serious dent in Australia's reputation as a car maker and reduces job security for our employees," Yasuda said.

Toyota Open To Discussions

According to The Australian, the industrial action was supposed to begin last week if Fair Work Australia had not granted Toyota an interim suspension, which banned the strike. Toyota applied for a similar suspension this week, but was denied the motion.

Spokeswoman Hill reiterated that the company was "always willing to discuss" with the Australia Manufacturing Worker's Union.