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The people at Toyota USA are treated and payed far differantly than Toyota Japan. The us plants have wages that are almost on par with the Union autoworkers, this helps keep the unions out. What it does for the manufacturer is allow them to arbitrarily adjust wages. For instance in their new plant they will be pay 3-5 dollars an hour less than the Kentucky plant for the same jobs. They will also be cutting wages at the Kentucky plant, the reasoning will be that the UAW took concessions so you guy will too. There are no negotiations because there is no representation. There is plenty of research that shows when union workers are doing well, it helps drive up the wages of nonunion workers doing similar jobs.
I have worked both sides of the fence union, and nonunion. At the nonunion employer whenever there was a serious threat of unionization the employer gave everyone $1.50/hr raise. This happened 2 times in the six years I was there. Also we worked our asses off at the nonunion job, often times safe practices were not followed, and injuries were the norm. The straw that broke the camels back for me was being passed over for a promotion. The promotion required the passing of a technical exam. I not only passed this exam, but was the first person to get every question correct on the written, and oral tests no one had ever done that before or since. I was assured that one of the two positions was mine. I was then passed over by someone who did poorly on the test, had less time in the company, and was a different skin color than I was. I was told by the foreman that this was pushed by HR. I left, got a better job that is union and have not looked back. Most of the guys at the previous job are all gone because of the high rate of attrition. Many that are left make 3-4 dollars an hour more than they did 14 years ago, while I make 3 times what they make.
As far as the perception that union workers are lazy, a few bad apples should not spoil it for the rest, not all are lazy, and many are very hard working.
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