The Japan Labor Flash
No.48
Email Journal October 17, 2005
JILPT Information
Information on JILPT Foreign Researcher Invitation Program for FY 2006
Statistical Reports
Recent Statistical Survey Reports
Current Topics
Some 30% of Business Establishments Employ Temporary Workers;
Many Workers Complain about Treatment
Discrimination against Union Members of Former National Railways
Recognized: Total Compensation of \1.4 Billion Ordered
Public Policies
Retirement Pay for Supreme Court Justices Down to One-Third; Wage
Structure for Judges to be Revised
Public Policies
Sony Plans Workforce Cuts for Revival
Public Policies
Gap in Outlooks between Firms and Employees over Moonlighting
JILPT Information
Information on JILPT Foreign Researcher Invitation Program for FY 2006
1. Purpose
This program invites foreign researchers to Japan and provides
them with opportunities for conducting research on labor policy
and labor issues in Japan, with the ultimate goal of improving
the quality of labor policy research in Japan.
2. Programs
Program types:
1) Long-term invitation program: 1-12 months
2) Short-term invitation program: Less than 1 month
Expenses
Travel, living and other expenses will be covered.
Requirements:
1) Must conduct research on Japanese labor policies or other
labor issues.
2) Must submit a research report to the JILPT at the end of
their stay.
3) Must possess adequate command of Japanese or English
4) Must conduct research and remain with the JILPT
5) Must be in good enough health to carry out and complete
intended studies
3. Application deadline
Applications are accepted annually. We are currently accepting
applications for FY 2006 (April 2006 to March 2007). If you would
like to apply for this fiscal year, please submit your application
documents by December 10, 2005.
For more details, please refer to:
Application Process for the Foreign Researcher Invitation Program
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/Invitation.htm
International Affairs Department (Invitation)
Statistical Reports
-Recent Statistical Survey Reports September 2005-
Features
Regional Minimum Wages (2005)
Survey of Salaries in Private Sector (FY2003)
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/estatis/esaikin/2005/e2005-09.htm
Current Topics
-Some 30% of Business Establishments Employ Temporary Workers;
Many Workers Complain about Treatment-
According to the findings of a Survey on the Situation of Temporary
Workers published in September by the Ministry of Health, Labour and
Welfare, the proportion of business establishments with temporary
workers, as of the end of August 2004, was 31.5 percent. Compared to
the situation one year earlier, 47.8 percent of the establishments
surveyed had more temporary workers, outnumbering establishments
which saw no change in the number of temporary workers (35.6%) and
those which had reduced the number (16.5%). The finance and insurance
sector registered the highest proportion of establishments with
temporary workers (638%), followed by telecommunications (50.3%),
real estate (48.6%), and the manufacturing sector (38.5%).
Of the temporary workers surveyed, 22.9 percent have made complaints
within the year. The highest proportion of complaints, 28.0 percent,
concerned "wages," followed by 21.9 percent concerning "the
nature of
assignments," 14.7 percent "working days, working hours, work
breaks,
overtime or holidays," and 13.5 percent "personal relationships
or
bullying at workplaces."
Additionally, 66.4 percent of the temporary workers surveyed made
requests of one kind or another to their temporary agencies. Of the
three choices allowed from the survey list of possible requests, the
highest proportion, 61.6 percent, pertained to "improvement in the
wage system," followed by "securing of jobs continually"
(33.5%),
"better benefits programs" (22.9%), "prompt response to
complaints
and requests" (22.1%), "making it easier to take annual paid
holidays"
(19.4%) and "better education and training programs" (18.8%).
-Discrimination against Union Members of Former National Railways
Recognized: Total Compensation of \1.4 Billion Ordered-
Kyodo News reported that on September 15, the Tokyo District Court
made a ruling on a lawsuit in which a total of 297 members of Kokuro
(the National Railway Workers' Union), dismissed upon the division
and privatization of Japan National Railways (JNR) in 1987, and
family members of deceased Kokuro members claimed that the dismissals
were invalid, calling for the restoration of their status (in
employment) and compensation. The presiding judge ruled that it was
a discriminatory act against union members for the former JNR not
to include the plaintiffs in the list of workers to be employed by
JR group companies, and ordered the privatized Japan Railway (JR)
companies to pay five million yen each, a total of 1.415 billion yen,
to 283 out of the 288 plaintiffs who were union members.
The defendants appealed against the verdict, as did the plaintiffs
who disagreed with the ruling that the dismissal had been valid.
US$=\113 (October 17, 2005）
Public Policies
-Retirement Pay for Supreme Court Justices Down to One-Third; Wage
Structure for Judges to be Revised-
On September 28, the government decided to fully implement the
recommendations of the National Personnel Authority (NPA) calling
for cuts in the salaries of national civil servants and revisions of
the wage structure.
(For the nature of the recommendations, see Japan Labor Flash No.46).
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2005/46.htm
Kyodo News reports that, in line with this, the Supreme Court on
the same day decided to cut the retirement allowance for 15 Supreme
Court justices to around one-third of the current amount, and to
introduce generous "area allowances" for judges in large cities
into
the salary system, which covers approximately 3,200 judges across
the country. The Ministry of Justice will soon submit the proposed
bills of the related laws to a special Diet session so that they can
be put into effect in April 2006.
This was the first reduction in retirement allowances for Supreme
Court justices since 1966 when the relevant special law was enacted.
Currently, retiring Supreme Court justices are paid the amount of
their monthly salary, approximately 1.6 million yen (approximately
2.2 million yen for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), for
each year in office, multiplied by a coefficient of 6.5. Under the
new system, however, the coefficient will be reduced to 2.4.
For example, a justice with a five-year tenure is currently paid
a retirement allowance of approximately 52 million yen, but will be
paid approximately 19 million yen after the revision. Where incumbent
justices are concerned, the current calculation method will reportedly
be applied to their terms in office before the revision.
The wage structure applied to judges will be revised in line with
the method suggested by the NPA, whereby the level of salaries will
be lowered but "area allowances" of 3 - 18 percent will be added
to
their salaries according to the areas where individual judges work.
While adjustment allowances of 3 - 12 percent already exist in the
current wage scheme, the latest revision will be unfavorable to
judges working in rural areas in that it involves wage cuts with
a smaller amount of area allowances, leading to an expansion of
the regional gap in wage levels.
The Constitution stipulates that "remuneration of judges may not
be reduced while they remain in office." Thus the remuneration of
judges is officially not subject to recommendations of the NPA,
but in practice the Supreme Court accepted an NPA recommendation
in 2002 which suggested cuts in monthly wages, so that a wage cut
of 21 percent on average was implemented after the relevant law
was revised.
Following the release of NPA recommendations in August, judges
across the country raised objections to its policy, which would
increase regional salary gaps. Meanwhile, the Japan Federation of
Bar Associations, too, has suggested in its opinion report that
a committee or organization should be established to discuss wages
of judges independently from the NPA.
Public Policies
-Sony Plans Workforce Cuts for Revival-
Sony Corp., announcing its mid-term management policy up to the
end of March 2008, says it will lay off 10,000 out of approximately
150,000 employees at home and abroad. Accordingly, the company is
expected to register a consolidated loss for the fiscal year ending
in March 2006, its first time in the red for 11 years.
The major cause for the deficit is a substantial increase in the
cost of restructuring its slumping electronics business. As a result,
Sony will reduce the number of production sites from 65 to 54, and
shed 4,000 employees from the domestic workforce and 6,000 from the
overseas workforce by the end of fiscal 2007, all of which is expected
to produce a total cost reduction of 200 billion yen. The firm is
withholding information concerning which divisions will be subject
to labor shedding.
In its management policy, Sony has set goals for recovering profits
by March 2007 and achieving operating profits of 5 percent by March
2008, while continuing to go ahead with withdrawal from unprofitable
businesses and elimination and consolidation of its divisions.
Chairperson and CEO Howard Stringer, in his summary statement,
attributed the cause of poor business performance to the firm's
"fragmented silo organizational structure." Sony will give up
this
fragmented "company system" and reorganize to create a centralized
chain of command across individual divisions as a means of achieving
stronger cooperation among them.
(Asahi Shimbun, September)
Public Policies
-Gap in Outlooks between Firms and Employees over Moonlighting-
According to the findings of a nationwide survey addressed to
5,000 firms, conducted in 2004 by the Japan Institute for Labour
Policy and Training (JILPT), as many as 50.4 percent of the firms
surveyed prohibited their regular employees from having a second job;
the proportion was substantially larger than the figure of 38.6%
marked in the previous survey in 1995.
Continued on;
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2005/no.48/48_si.html
