EDITORIAL: Shunto negotiations

This year's shunto spring wage negotiations kicked off Tuesday with a meeting between Fujio Mitarai, chairman of Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), and Nobuaki Koga, chairman of Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation).

With the nation's economy mired in a deflationary downturn, labor unions have decided to avoid making uniform demands for increases in base pay but will put priority on annual wage hikes.

Employers, however, appear bent on keeping down labor costs. They are repeating their argument that job security should take precedence over wage growth and have expressed their desire to freeze annual pay increases.

The take-home income of Japanese workers has declined due to cuts in overtime pay and bonuses.

Slashing the periodic pay hikes would further depress wages and dampen consumer confidence. That could exacerbate the problem with deflation.

During their shunto negotiations with labor unions over wages, employers should consider how the results of the bargaining could affect the economy as a whole.

The shunto talks should not be focused solely on the interests of full-time employees.

Both sides should place importance on saving the jobs of workers of all employment statuses--including both regular and nonregular workers--and protecting and improving their pay and working conditions.

From this point of view, we applaud Rengo, the nation's largest labor union association, for pledging to make efforts to improve the working conditions of all workers as a key slogan for this year's shunto.

Unions belonging to Rengo will start efforts to achieve that goal by studying the working conditions of nonregular workers.

It is said that both labor and management have little idea how much money is actually paid to the work force when nonregular workers are included.

In recent years, many companies have used procurement sections instead of personnel departments to hire nonregular workers so that these people can be easily laid off when economic conditions deteriorate.

A key topic for the shunto negotiations should be about how to change this situation. But we are not satisfied with employers' commitments to find a solution to this problem.

Another urgent issue is how the traditional employment system is now out of sync in a society where a growing number of nonregular workers are the key income earners of households. This system should be changed to build harmonious labor-management relations and promote social stability.

But employers appear to have little interest in this issue.

The Japanese employment and wage systems were built mainly on ideas developed by labor and management in actual workplaces.

A solid agreement between labor and management could lead to a breakthrough, even if it involves painful reform.

Solidarity between labor and management made it possible for Hiroshima Electric Railway Co., operator of train and bus services in Hiroshima Prefecture, to take the bold move last year of making its nonregular workers full-time employees.

The wage gap between regular and nonregular workers should be narrowed by introducing the principle of "same pay for same work."

It is difficult to immediately achieve this goal, but progress can be made if companies are really serious about treating nonregular workers as legitimate members of their work force.

For the time being, companies should try to reduce the wage disparity through such efforts as raising their minimum wages or giving nonregular workers wages and working conditions commensurate with those provided to full-time employees doing the same job.

The Declaration of Philadelphia, which defines the aims and purposes of the International Labor Organization, says, "Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere."

Both labor and management, especially business leaders, should take this maxim to heart.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 27