The Labor-Management Consultation System at a Turning Point
In Japan, unlike the case of collective bargaining, there are no legal regulations for the labor-management consultation system whereby employers and workers, on an equal footing and on an everyday basis, discuss management, production, labor conditions, welfare programs and various other issues in which both sides have a shared interest. The labor-management consultation system -a method which facilitates dialogue with management while respecting workers' views -has now been adopted by firms with no labor unions, contributing greatly to the development of the economy and industry in Japan.
However, just as the conditions affecting the Japanese economy and society have changed substantially, so the consultation system, too, seems to be facing a turning point. With start-ups, remodeling, closures and reshufflings of corporate organizations intensifying, labor unions have been losing their centripetal force, with the unionization rate falling for the 30th consecutive year, to 18.7 percent. The proportion of part-time and dispatched workers in the workforce as a whole has been increasing, and types of employment have been diversifying. Moreover, employees' outlooks and ways of working have changed considerably. In all of these respects, there are quite a few challenges with which the labor-management consultation system has to cope.
In the meantime, the system also faces the question of how to deal with issues which have until now been outside the scope of consultation, such as global management and corporate social responsibility. Where corporate reshufflings are concerned, issues subject to labor-management consultation should be reconsidered, as seen, for example, in cases where management seems to be wary of discussing with labor corporate information related to reshuffling, on the grounds that it may violate the regulations on insider trading. At the same time, now that merit-based personnel management has been widely accepted, management tends to be on a more individual basis, making it difficult for labor and management to rely on rules cumulatively formulated over a long period of time.
The Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development emphasizes that the labor-management consultation system, while facing various changes, is still necessary for communication between the two sides, and it proposes the establishment of a labor-management consultation system for the new era, which involves: (i) the formulation of a mechanism capable of dealing with corporate reshufflings and groupings; (ii) efforts to reflect the views of all workers within the company; and (iii) incorporating society's viewpoint in response to activities related to corporate social responsibility.
