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.