The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations: Reform without Labor

247 Pages·2011·4.26 MB·English

by  Jun Imai

The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations
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9780230_209084_01_prexiv.indd i 11/25/2010 8:21:43 PM
The Transformation of
Japanese Employment
Relations
Reform without Labor
Jun Imai
Assistant Professor, Center for the Study of Social Stratification
and Inequality, Tohoku University
9780230_209084_01_prexiv.indd i 11/25/2010 8:21:43 PM
© Jun Imai 2011
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN: 978–0–230–20908–4 hardback
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Contents
List of Tables viii
List of Figures x
List of Abbreviations xii
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Sociological Theory of Employment Relations 1
Did Japanese employment relations change? 1
Employment relations in sociological perspective 3
Contract/effort 4
Mobility 6
S tate-f irm-l abor negotiations at societal, organizational and
workplace levels 8
Societal construction of labor markets 9
Welfare-e mployment policies 10
Labor management practices and authority relations 11
Research strategy and the structure of the book 12
2 Employment Relations in Postwar Japan 17
Introduction 17
A brief history of employment relations in Japan 17
The postwar labor struggle and its consequences 17
T he end of the rapid economic growth and belt-t ightening
management 2
The characteristics of postwar Japanese employment relations 27
Contract/effort 27
Mobility 35
Summary 40
Regulations of employment relations: with or without labor 42
‘Corporatism with labor’ at work 42
‘Reform without labor’? 43
3 Political Segmentation of the Labor Market: The
Establishment and Expansion of New Employment Forms 50
The employers’ initiative for labor market reform 50
Social organization of labor markets in the postwar period 53
v
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vi Contents
The comparative strength of ‘flexible rigidities’ 53
Initial expansion of the external labor market 57
Deregulation of the labor markets 59
Policy shift 59
Descriptive characteristics of the labor market changes 64
Inequalities between regular and non- regular contracts 77
A high wall between contracts 82
Reconfiguration of employment contracts and job mobility 89
4 The DWS: Deregulation of Working Time and Its Impact
on the Effort-Bargain 92
Working time regulation and employment relations 92
LSA regulation and the company citizenship 93
Working time reduction and renewed interest in the DWS 98
Working time reduction for better quality of life 98
Shifted aim of the reform of working time regulation 104
The political dynamics of the working time deregulation 111
Marginalization of labor in the politics of deregulation 111
Decentralization of working time regulations 116
The DWS: a legal base for the renegotiation of effort-b argain 119
5 Re-b argaining Effort: The Introduction of
Results-O rientation at COMPUJ 122
Labor management reform and white-c ollar effort 122
T he movement of labor management reform: the case of
COMPUJ 123
E mployers’ movement to introduce results-o riented
labor management 123
COMPUJ in context 125
Initiating the results-o riented labor management 130
Management by objectives 130
Old practice of rotation, old attitude of adaptation 134
Conflict 138
Rising concerns over the new system 140
Intensification of results-o rientation 142
D eliberation of the MBO and the diversification
of career track 142
Formalization of evaluation criteria:
‘competency’ management 146
S elf-m anagement under control: job announcement
and the DWS 152
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Contents vii
M arketization, formalization and individualization
of labor management 156
C onsequences of the changes within COMPUJ 158
6 Conclusion: Changes and Future Directions of Japanese
Employment Relations 161
Changing employment relations 161
Contract/effort 162
Mobility 166
The declining presence of labor unions 167
R emaking employment relations: risks and opportunities
for Japanese workers 170
‘Deflation of employment’ in Japan 170
R ight to a career without organizational membership 173
Appendices
A1.1 List of interviewees 176
A3.1 M ajor reforms of labor market regulations
in the post-W WII period 178
A3.2 Revisions of the limited-t erm contract 180
A3.3 Labor market changes 183
A4.1 Chronology of working time regulations 186
A4.2 Discretionary work regulations as of 2000 188
A5.1 Future principles of labor management 190
A5.2 The COMPUJ organizational chart as of July, 1994 191
Notes 192
References 210
Glosary 23
Index 225
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Tables
1.1 Domains of contention by the levels of regulation 9
1.2 The structure and regulations of employment relations 15
2.1 The ranking and qualification system 37
2.2 T he characteristics of employment relations in Japan
(core regular workers) 40
2.3 T he advisory council: the case of the Central
Labor Standards Council as of 2000 44
2.4 The list of deregulation committees since 1995 47
2.5 M embers of deregulation committees, samples
from 1998 and 2001 48
3.1 Nikkeiren’s employment diversification strategy 52
3.2 R egular/non- regular composition of the
Japanese labor market from 1956 57
3.3 Changes in labor market structure by employment status 65
3.4 C hanges in labor market structure by
employment status and firm size 68
3.5 A verage hourly wages of temporary staff by
occupational category 79
3.6 Methods of wage payment by employment status 80
3.7 Mobility within the labor force 83
3.8 The number of workers who changed jobs
(1997–2002) 84
3.9 The number of workers who changed jobs (2002–7) 85
3.10 D istribution of employment status, origin and destination 86
4.1 G radual implementation of 40-h ours-p er-w eek
(manufacturing) 9
4.2 G radual implementation of 40-h ours-p er-w eek
(commerce) 100
4.3 Nikkeiren’s strategy for the application of the DWS 108
4.4 S ummary of opinions on the expansion of
the DWS by related actors: early stage 110
4.5 C hanging working time regulations for
white-c ollar workers 118
5.1 T he chronology of the labor management
reforms at COMPUJ 129
viii
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Tables ix
5.2 T he MBO evaluation sheet at COMPUJ (translation
of the performance measures by rank) 132
5.3 Required capabilities in workflow 134
5.4 E mployees’ assessment of the personnel evaluation,

F Department 140
5.5 Three types of role in managerial rank 144
5.6 New categorization and definition of workforce 146
5.7 Basic competency at COMPUJ 149
5.8 E xcerpts from the role-s pecific competency
(system engineers) 150
6.1 C hanges in employment relations since the 1990s
(core regular workers) 163
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