Crucial stages of 2003 spring joint labor negotiations now over

Labor had prepared for this year's shunto, or spring joint labor negotiations, by strongly stressing employment security and giving up making basic wage hike demands. We have been reporting regularly on the views and assertions of both labor and management. This year's spring joint labor negotiations have come to a close, more or less, with major metal industrial unions receiving their response on March 12. From here on, the spotlight will shift to negotiations of small- to medium-scale unions as well as local industrial groups.

In the negotiations of metal industry unions for this term, a significant majority gave up demanding basic wage hikes. Thus, the focus of their demand shifted to securing periodic pay raises (the wage curve) and increasing lump sum payments.

As a result of the negotiations, major metal industry unions secured an amount equivalent to periodic wage hikes. As for lump sum payments, although differences were seen depending on business performance, the unions managed to obtain increased payments and regain previous payment levels.

As for major automobile unions, Federation of All Nissan and General Workers' Union－the only union demanding basic wage hikes－succeeded in obtaining a basic monthly pay hike of 1,000 yen and an annual lump sum payment corresponding to 5.8 months' pay. These results showed that their demands were met 100%. Similarly, the labor union of Toyota Motor Workers' Union, which hit the headlines by giving up demanding basic wage hikes despite the company posting a record-high ordinary profit, received a 100% response to their demands from management, with the annual lump sum payment corresponding to 5.0 month' salary (a record high) plus 550,000 yen, along with a special separate payment of 60,000 yen.

Rengo President Sasamori praised these responses, stating that the unions had bravely rejected management pressure to cut wages. On the other hand, Nippon Keidanren Chairman Hiroshi Okuda said that the results were exactly as expected in the sense that almost all demands centered on periodic wage hikes and that no basic wage increases were realized. He stated, "Under the current tough management conditions and lackluster corporate performance due to falling merchandise prices and other factors, both management and labor may have agreed that their company could not withstand the burden of basic pay raises."

As for the reexamination of the wage system, however, particularly concerning the curtailment and/or abolition of periodic pay raises that have become the focus of disputes this year, the unions have decided to postpone their discussions during the shunto, saying that the issue is of such a nature that it could not be discussed within such a short period of time. Therefore, the general trend is for them to leave the issue up to post-shunto negotiations.

In other words, reexamination of the periodic pay raise system has been postponed, but will constitute the biggest issue for discussion from now on. All attention is now focused on how the labor-management negotiations will develop after the spring joint labor negotiations.