Moves afoot to adopt wage-determining methods based on type of occupation

In this year's spring labor offensive, international competitive strength became the central labor-management issue, and as a result, most companies responded with zero basic wage hikes. Because of this, the Japanese Electrical, Electronic and Information Union ("Denki Rengo") has decided to begin conducting in June of this year a fact-finding survey to investigate the status of wages by occupation. Denki Rengo's goal is to replace the existing method of determining wages with a system of categorizing wages by type of occupation. This planned wage-determining system aims at improving the wage level for each occupational category, and at applying the same wage level throughout the industry.

Specifically, from a list of skilled occupations for which specific jobs are cited for each job category, Denki Rengo will select certain occupations as the basic occupational category for which demands will be made. For example, from among the "Skilled occupations," Machinery Processing and Product Assembly will be chosen; from "Sales and clerical occupations," Planning and Sales will be chosen; and from the "Technology/engineering occupations," SE, Development & Design, and Research will be chosen. These jobs will be made "Selected demand items," and intra-industry minimum wages-below which the workers should not accept work-will be established for each type of occupation. At the same time, Denki Rengo will set up a specific goal for each type of occupation, and work to raise the wages to attain that level.

Denki Rengo will first investigate the actual wage status in major unions, then gradually expand the target of the survey to include all affiliated unions by FY2005. This method is expected to dramatically change how Denki Rengo carries out wage hike struggles. Needless to say, once the "Wages by occupation" system takes hold, it should help establish an industry-wide wage system. Unlike industry-wide unions that are prevalent in Europe and the US, Japanese labor unions are regarded as a toothless federation of company-based unions. The new method may also end up strengthening Japanese labor unions.

Similar moves are also beginning to be seen in other industry labor unions. The Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' Unions, for example, has decided to replace their conventional ways of demanding cost-of-living wage hikes with a system for demanding wage hikes focusing on occupational types and skills. The Union will work to establish rationales for switching to this new system.
These moves to emphasize the system of determining wages based on occupational category, seen primarily in the Japan Council of Metal Workers' Unions (IMF-JC), have the potential to induce a revolution in Japanese wage negotiations.