The 2006 Spring Joint Wage Negotiations (Shunto) Set in Motion
On February 3, at a meeting in Tokyo, Rengo (the Japanese Trade Union Confederation) adopted an "announcement of the commencement of this year's struggle." This was followed on February 10 by the submission of requests to management by Kikan Roren (the Japan Federation of Basic Industry Workers' Unions) and major unions, thereby effectively setting in motion the spring joint wage negotiations. The date for management to respond was set at March 15.
Rengo President Tsuyoshi Takagi said that "the crucial issues will be the demand for practical improvements in wages for the first time in five years; narrowing of the wage gap between large enterprises and small and medium-sized ones; and improvements in the hourly wages and working conditions of part-time workers." Declaring that part-time and non-union workers have great expectations of the shunto, and that the unions thus bear social responsibility for rectifying disparities in society, he appealed to unions to negotiate with firms aggressively and courageously in order to remedy the current situation in which corporate performance is strong but workers are financially worn out.
On the other hand, at a press conference held on February 2, Nippon Keidanren Chairman Hiroshi Okuda stressed that each firm should determine its own wage levels according to its own circumstances. As for labor-management negotiations during the spring offensive, he said that it was a pity that some unions in the same industry still tended to demand the same pay hikes.
Kikan Roren, an industry federation of unions in the iron and steel, shipbuilding, heavy machinery and other industries, has decided on a policy for the 2006 spring offensive which includes a demand for "wage improvements" of 3,000 yen per union member over the coming two years. On February 10, its major unions submitted their requests to management, calling on them to respond by March 15.
On February 8, the Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions (IMF-FC), to which the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' Unions (JAW), the Japanese Electrical, Electronic & Information Union and other unions in the metal industry are affiliated, published a 2006 "mini white paper" on the spring struggle. In this, the Council pointed out that the long-term growth rate of monthly wages has been substantially lower than that of value added in the metal industry, and that the level of monthly wages in the industry has been falling in recent years. In line with this, the Council emphasized the importance of creating attractive labor conditions - in particular, improvement in monthly wages - for the sake of securing workers in the manufacturing industries.
In recent years, however, different unions have been making different demands: Toyota Motor Workers' Union has demanded, apart from regular pay hikes, an increase of 1,000 yen in the basic monthly pay for the first time in four years. The general trend seen in recent years of unions focusing on the demand for an increase in lump-sum payments due to the difficulty in realizing uniform wage increases seems to be changing somewhat.
A Teikoku Databank survey on wage trends conducted on the Internet and addressed to approximately 20,000 firms across the country has revealed that firms responding that there would be basic pay hikes in this fiscal year accounted for 27 percent, much lower than the proportion of those giving negative responses (48 percent).
Despite all this, it remains uncertain whether the shunto wage negotiations, which have hitherto focused on a uniform increase in wages, will change completely; and whether the rejection of the uniform wage hike and basic pay hike, and other strategies of which so much has been made in recent years, will become fully accepted in practice.
