Japan Press Weekly

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2011 November 30 - December 6 [LABOR]

Rengo disgraced by DPJ-led government

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government is going to enact a bill to reduce its employees’ wages by an average of 7.8% while shelving a bill to provide the right to conclude a collective agreement with them.

When the government submitted these two bills to the Diet in June, the ruling DPJ promised the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), one of Japan’s major national trade centers and the DPJ’s largest supporter, to enact the bills as a package. Based on this promise, Rengo agreed to cut national government workers’ wages.

The government is supposed to determine government workers’ working conditions and wages in accordance with recommendations made by the National Personnel Authority, an independent organization protecting public sector workers’ working conditions from the government’s arbitrary attempt to change them.

This process is called the NPA recommendation system and is stipulated in the National Public Service Act. The system was established in 1948 as compensation for the restriction of public sector workers’ fundamental labor rights, including the right to collective bargaining, guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution. Since then, the government has presented a bill to revise government workers’ wages to the Diet based on an annual salary recommendation that the NAP issues every year.

The government, however, submitted the wage cut bill to the Diet in June in defiance of the NPA recommendation system. Subsequently, the NPA in September issued its conventional salary recommendation in which the range of wage cuts is lower than called for in the government bill.

Clinging to the ruling party’s promise to grant the right to conduct collective agreements to public servants, Rengo called on the government to ignore this year’s NPA recommendation. In October, when the government decided to enact the government proposed bill, disregarding the NPA recommendation, Rengo accepted this government decision as a sensible decision.

However, Rengo disgraced itself by facing the recent government move focusing only on the enactment of the wage cut bill through behind-the-door negotiations with the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties.

Secretary General of the Japan Federation of National Public Service Employees’ Unions (Kokko-roren), member of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), Okabe Kan’ichi said, “The government should retract the government submitted bill and negotiate with unions based on the NPA recommendation. It also should stop limiting government workers’ fundamental labor rights in line with the Japanese Constitution and ILO standards.”