Japan Press Weekly

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2015 January 21 - 27 [LABOR]

Court approves unilateral pay cut for technical college teachers

The Tokyo District Court on January 21 rejected teachers’ demands for the cancellation of unilateral pay cuts by national technical colleges.

Plaintiffs are the Faculty and Staff Union of Japanese Universities (Zendaikyo) and 282 workers of National Colleges of Technology across the country.

Since being turned into an independent administrative agency in 2004, salaries and working conditions of technical college workers have been determined by the technical college administration through negotiations with unions.

As the government decided to slash its employees’ salaries by 7.8% on average in 2012, the Institute of National Colleges of Technology, which operates technical colleges, forcibly imposed an 8.2% pay cut on technical college workers after unsuccessfully having negotiations with the union three times. Claiming that the pay cut without union consent was illegal, the plaintiffs filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court.

Zendaikyo Secretary General Nagayama Yasuhide at a press conference after the ruling stressed that without a working relationship between labor and management, workers cannot exercise their rights.

Past related article
> 500 professors fight in courts against massive wage cuts [October 4, 2013]