Skills Development and Labor Union in Japan 1
4. Concluding Remarks
We have examined labor unions’ participation in vocational training in Japan. Since the establish- ment of a training and education benefits system in 1998, labor unions’ participation in vocational training has been increasing. We have examined labor unions’ participation in vocational train- ing at three levels: the State level, the industry level and the corporate and business establishment level. At the State level, Rengo participates in vocational training by compiling a document titled
“Policies and systems, demands and proposals” every year and also takes part in government com- mittees and subcommittees and exchanging opinions with government officials. At the industry level, almost no industry-based labor unions are taking part in vocational training at present. As the only exceptions, the General Federation of Construction Workers Unions (Zenkensoren) conducts vocational training subjectively, and the All Japan Federation of Electric Machine Workers Unions (Denkirengo) set up vocational academy in 2003 and made preparations to bring its concept to fruition. At the corporate level, the management only asks labor unions’ opinions and explains the management’s plans, and labor-management consultations are very limited. Labor’s participation in vocational training at the corporate level is only passive. They express their opinions about edu- cation and training plans when asked by the management, and such active participation as making requests about the management’s education and training plans is very rare. Labor’s participation in vocational training is seen at labor-management consulting bodies rather than at collective bar- gaining, but labor’s participation at companies where there are labor unions does not differ much from labor’s participation at companies where there are no labor unions. In other words, the effects of labor unions’ participation in vocational training at companies and business establishments can hardly be seen.
In the background to the non-participation in vocational training by labor unions in Japan in the past, vocational training in Japan was given mainly as on-job training within companies basi- cally through voluntary investment by companies.54 There are almost no companies in Japan that conduct vocational training at the request of labor unions. Development of human resources through vocational training is considered the management’s business or a part of the management’s exclusive right.
In recent years, however, there have been indications that Japanese companies’ policies about vocational training are changing, though slowly. For example, their basic strategies for human re-
54. Takeshi Inagami, 1999:11
sources development and education and training have declined. According to a survey55 in 1999, companies that had strategies to upgrade human resources development and vocational training in that year represented 78%, it went down nearly 9% from 86.6% in 1986. On the other hand, com- panies that intensified the policy of rating their employees on the basis of ability and performance increased from 78.9% to 83.6%. It is expected that while investment in education and training by companies is declining, their policy rating their employees on the basis of ability and performance will be intensified. There is a strong probability that an age will come when employees have to ed- ucate themselves and improve their vocational abilities by themselves.56 Although teaching knowl- edge and skills through on-job training will continue to constitute the core of vocational training at companies, employees will have to invest in themselves to improve their abilities and skills in or- der to survive the environment where companies reduce investment in education and training and adhere to the ability first, performance first policies. The Government has to meet such needs of employed workers by furnishing education and training bounties. There is a strong probability that companies will support such self-help endeavors by their employees rather than conducting educa- tion and training with their curriculums.57
The unemployment rate in Japan has been sharply rised since the 1990s. The unemployment rate, which was 2% during the 1980s, rose to 3%-4% with the turn of the year into the 1990s, reached 5.0% in 2001 and stood at 4.0% as of 2013. Many companies went bankrupt in the 1990s~the 2000s, and many others suffered deterioration in performance. Under such harsh employment and economic conditions, labor unions are making diverse studies to find ways to defend the job security for their members and maintain and improve their working conditions. Labor Union B is studying whether there is any problem in the company’s method to foster the growth of abilities and is holding talks with the management about the company’s vision for the future. The All Japan Federation of Electric Machine Workers Unions (Denki Rengo) is going to establish a vocational academy to secure jobs for its members within the electrical machine industry. Rengo (the Japa- nese Confederation of Labor) demanded that labor unions’ participation be increased in vocational
55. The survey was conducted by Japan Institute of Labour on 2,177 companies. The results of the survey are now being analyzed.
56. The Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) at a meeting of its board on October 19 (1999) came up with a proposal to restructure the employment and work system by restructuring the wage and treatment system based on seniority. In the proposal, Keidanren advocated improvement of vocational abilities of individuals through self-education (the October 20, 1999 issue of Mainichi Shimbun, a newspaper). A survey commissioned by the Ministry of Labor in 1999 showed that companies that said the weight of individuals’ responsibility in the development of abilities would be increased represented a high 74.0% (the white paper on labor, 1999, by the Ministry of Labor, Page 417).
57. Nikkeiren (Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations) 1999, “Toward Establishment of Employability”
training including the training of jobless workers, and the human resources development basic plan that reflects the assertions has been compiled.
Judging from the above trends, it is likely that companies’ role in education and training will weaken more or less in Japan hereafter while the roles of the State and labor unions will increase slightly. Then, Japan’s peculiarity in vocational training will become dilute.
T. J. Pempel and Keiichi Tsunekawa defined Japan’s corporatism as excluding labor unions from the national-level organization, sealing up workers at the level of each business establishment and neutralizing their potentially destabilizing power (against the establishment). In Japan, however, labor organizations have grown into nationwide bodies through such developments as the forma- tion of the Labor Congress for Policy Promotion(=Seisakusuishinrousoukaigi in Japanese) in 1976 and the launching of Rengo in 1989, and are increasing their participation in the formation of government policies. Labor bodies are moderately disavowing “corporatism without labor”58 and are going to proceed to “corporatism with labor.” The neo-corporatism in Japan, however, can be termed as “a moderate administrative corporatism59” that is based in labor-management relations within companies or corporate communities and in which the administration performs an important role, replacing labor-management’s social partnership. Moderate administrative corporatism can be seen in the formation of policies for vocational training at the State level.
58. As a systematic study of labor unions’ participation in policy formation in Japan, see Naoto Ohmi “Macrocorporatism in Japan Today”
1994 by Naoto Ohmi.
59. Takeshi Inagami 1999 “Industrial Community and Labor in Japan”in Takeshi Inagami and Takashi Kawakita, eds., Lectures on Sociology, Volume 6: Labor, University of Tokyo Press
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