Better a cut than no pay at all says the union.

It’s not just the beleaguered members of the United Auto Workers union who are granting concessions to automakers in desperate, perhaps futile, attempts to save their jobs as the Great Recession careens toward depression. Toyota workers in the United Kingdom have just agreed to a 10% cut in wages on the recommendation of their union, as Toyota scaled back production 10%. It was just the latest in a series of economizing steps that Toyota is undertaking globally.

Peter Tsouvallaris, the Unite the Union representative in the United Kingdom said:  “Unite’s priority is to secure jobs and give our members a fighting chance of coming through this economic turmoil with their jobs and livelihoods intact. Any decision to cut wages and working time is never taken lightly, but the agreement we have reached with Toyota will ensure none of our members’ benefits are eroded and that these skilled workers will remain in place and at work ready for when the upturn comes.”

The agreement, effective April 1, is for one year. It applies to about 4500 workers at Toyota’s North Wales (Deeside) engine plant and the car manufacturing plant in Derby. Two hundred temporary positions were previously eliminated. The plants had just completed a two-week shut down.

Other automakers are cutting jobs and limiting production across Europe. In the United Kingdom workers at Jaguar-Land Rover accepted a pay freeze and a shorter working week last week. Ford, Mini and Nissan, among others, have eliminated jobs and curtailed production.

Toyota has undertaken cutbacks, frozen wages and reduced or eliminated bonuses in North America, but has thus far not asked for sweeping wage concessions from its production workers that have been granted at the unionized Ford, General Motors and Chrysler plants.

Last month, Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America (TEMA), using a philosophy of “shared sacrifice,” scheduled periodic non-production days as needed, but protected jobs by providing training and plant improvement work. Hiring has been frozen, overtime eliminated, and capital spending halted. More production cutbacks are coming.

TEMA also says there is the “strong possibility of reduced work/pay weeks,” dubbed “work sharing,” at some plants. Production workers at affected plants would work and be paid 72 hours instead of 80 during a two-week pay period. Last week, the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc plant (NUMMI) went ahead with work sharing, affecting 5,000 workers. The Fremont, California, plant is a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors and is represented by the UAW, Toyota’s only unionized plant in North America.

Click here for TDB’s previous Toyota Confirms Big Cuts story