Industrial Relations In Japan

Discusses the Japanese labour relations system, focusing on the role of workers, employers, and the government in shaping industrial relations.

Monograph on labour relations in Japan - covers effect of cultural factors on employment practices, human relations, trade union rights, collective agreements, labour disputes and dispute settlement, strikes and lockouts, violence, etc. Bibliography pp. 241 to 248, references and statistical tables.

The conventional picture of industry and industrial relations in Japan is of a number of very large firms providing extremely attractive working conditions for their happy and contented workforce. Norma Chalmers shows that there is in fact another, very different side to the picture, which occurs in the the peripheral sector. Here, conditions are often poor, wages very low and continuity of employment virtually non-existent. There are many small firms where the effectiveness of worker organisation and bargaining declines as the firm's size and proximity to the industrial centre decrease. Moreover, as Chalmers shows, the peripheral sector is very large, and the conventional picture of the model workforce should probably be confined to a few flagship companies. The book argues that the model nature of the large firms may stem in part from the fact that they are able to off-load problems onto smaller firms who produce the components necessary for the large firm sector at disadvantageous subcontract terms.

This book denies the cultural uniqueness of Japanese industrial relations and economy, characterised by permanent employment, seniority wages and enterprise unionism. The author provides an entirely new explanation of Japanese workers' high morale and Japan's impressive economic performance which, he argues, results from skilled employees working against a background of high technology. The argument of the book is based on intensive field-work, consisting of a series of interviews with veteran workers on the shop floor, and on an explicit comparative study between the USA and Japan.

Opinions about industrial relations (IR) in Japan are extremely diversified. The main concern regarding IR appears to be whether Japan can maintain the vitality and flexibility to cope with the changes in the industrial structure and technology in a stagnant world economy. The lack of opposition and dispute between labor and management may be the most important feature for summarizing labor-management relations in modern Japan when making international comparisons. Hypotheses for understanding Japanese IR have been postulated in regard to the following: unintended consequences, homogeneous structure, business community of management and labor, global competition and the needs for flexibility, adaptability in competitive markets, and transformation of the paradigm of IR. The historical development of labor relations in Japan shows a spirit of cooperation. By any measurement of cooperation, labor-management cooperation is strongest in Japan. A special feature of the corporate structure is management's role as referee between the employees and the stockholders. Other features include a continuous path of promotion, firm-specific training, built-in wage-profit system, and transit members of unions. A typical system for mutual communication is the "labor-management consultation system." In the future, unions must minimize adverse effects of competition among rival companies, individualization, and fragmentation of IR. (Appendixes include 25 references and a chronological table of IR in Japan.) (YLB)