Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-12-21)

◼ ECONOMICS

25

PHOTOGRAPH BY NORIKO HAYASHI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. *2020 FIGURES AS OF COMPANIES’ LATEST QUARTERLY REPORT. DATA: COMPILED

BY

BLOOMBERG

(LEFT);

JAPAN

MINISTRY

OF

HEALTH,

LABOUR

AND

WELFARE

(RIGHT)

THEBOTTOMLINE Japan’sunionizationratehasbeenhovering

at an all-time low of 17% as nonregular workers have become an

ever-larger share of the labor force.

workers, who in Japan are the first to be cut in a

downturn. “We’ve tried to empower women by

representing their voices so that they can keep

working with pride,” Tani says. “But in reality, the

situation has been deteriorating.”

Even in the best of times, Japan’s nonregular

workers, a category in which women are heavily

represented, enjoy few job protections compared

with salaried employees. The divide has become

particularly stark this year: 680,000 nonregular

workers have been cut, while the ranks of regu-

lar workers have held steady. Tani and Nitta say

Japan’s traditional unions, male-dominated and

with more resources than theirs, share in the

blame. “Labor unions made of regular workers

have let nonregular workers be used as a buffer so

that they could protect their own jobs in a down-

turn,” Nitta says.

Jobs-for-life were the norm in Japan until the

early 1990s, when the bubble economy collapsed

into a prolonged malaise. Unions didn’t need to

fight for raises for their members, because they

were a given. After the boom, they largely stood

on the sidelines as companies moved factory jobs

abroad and stepped up hiring of contract and part-

time workers to cut costs.

Most of the larger unions have made no real

effort to sign up nonregular workers, which is a

big reason many have lost their clout. The union-

ization rate fell to a record low of 16.7% in 2019 and

stood at 17.1% in 2020, from close to 25.2% in 1990,

according to government data. The rate for women,

who represent more than two-thirds of nonregu-

lar workers, was 12.8%; for part-timers it was 8.7%.

Michiko Kawai, 62, has lost all of her income

since March when she was put on leave from

her job handing out product samples at Tokyo-

area supermarkets. The company for which she’s

worked for the past 11 years on a contract basis

hasn’t paid her legally mandated furlough allow-

ance. Frustrated, Kawai turned to Haken Union,

which specializes in representing nonregular work-

ers. “I don’t think the company will give me work

again,” she says.

Shuichiro Sekine, the general secretary of

Haken, which has about 300 members, says

businesses routinely obstruct his organization’s

efforts. “Companies don’t accept requests when

nonregular workers organize a union,” he says.

“They push back our requests even if they agree

to sit down with us.”

At Hiroshima Electric Railway Co., the in-house

union reached an agreement with management in

2001 to sign up nonregular workers. Masaaki Sako,

head of the union, recalls hearing the employees

say they liked their jobs, but the pay was poor

and the one-year contracts left them feeling vul-

nerable. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something for

them,’ ” he says.

Almost a decade later, the union was instru-

mental in getting the company to convert all

nonregular workers, who accounted for almost

a third of its workforce, to regular positions. As

part of the negotiations, the union persuaded

older members to take a pay cut to close the gap

with newer hires.

The deal raised morale inside the company,

Sako says, but other unions gave him the cold

shoulder. “I got a sense that the mentality of union

higher-ups had rotted,” he says. Today almost

all of the railway’s 1,800 employees belong to

the union.

During his almost eight years in office, former

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe regularly prodded

Japanese companies to raise pay, saying their stin-

giness had contributed to a deflation mentality that

held back growth. Under his watch, Japan’s min-

imum wage went up 20%, to 901 yen ($8.70). At

theendofAugust,Abeannouncedhewouldbe

steppingdownbecauseofhealthproblems.That

samemonth,thelaborministryannounceda 1-yen

increase for the current fiscal year.

Annual wage negotiations, a springtime ritual,

will provide a test of unions’ leverage. Rengo, the

country’s largest umbrella organization of labor

unions, is seeking a raise of about 2% for its 7 mil-

lion members, as well as a minimum hourly wage

of 1,100 yen regardless of employment status, to

narrow inequality among workers. Rengo’s mem-

bership ranges from heavyweights such as the

unions covering Toyota Motor Corp. employees to

smaller entities like Haken Union. Only 18% of its

members are nonregular workers. “We are behind

and playing catch-up,” says Rikio Kozu, who heads

Rengo. “Few Japanese see unions as relevant to

their lives.” �Yoshiaki Nohara

▲ Tani and Nitta of

Women’s Union Tokyo

▼ Share of Japanese

workers belonging to

a union

35%

25

15

1955 2020