Suicides in Japan in 2009 stayed above 30,000 for the 12th consecutive year, but those linked to job losses spiked, defying claims that the economy is on the mend, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday.
The number of suicides in the reporting year totaled 32,845, up 1.85 percent from the preceding year, the NPA said in a revised report.
Of the total, 24,434, or 74 percent, were listed as suicides with causes that were clarified by notes left by the victims or by the knowledge of people close to them, the NPA said.
Suicides traced to job losses, however, surged 65.3 percent to 1,071, while those attributed to hardships jumped 34.3 percent to 1,731.
Depression continued to top the list of reasons for the third consecutive year, rising 7.1 percent from the previous year to 6,949.
The NPA revised the categorization of reasons and motives for suicide in 2007. Under the new breakdown, suicides are divided into 50 categories, with up to three categories listed for each suicide.
The rate of suicides, or the number per 100,000 people, came to 24.1 among those in their 20s, an all-time high for that age group for the second straight year, and 26.2 among those in their 30s, a record for the third year in a row, the NPA said.
The rates topped 30 among people in their 40s to 60s, it added.
The number of suicides in Japan grew sharply in October 2008 — a month after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, throwing the global economy into a prolonged recession.
In 2009, monthly suicides increased from year-before levels from January to August. They were especially rampant in March, April and May, when suicides topped 3,000 in each month as financial demands due to the fiscal yearend apparently picked up during the period, said the NPA.
Since the turn of 2010, however, the number of suicides has tended to decline, falling 9.0 percent from a year before to 10,309 in January-April, according to a preliminary figure compiled by the NPA.
How the homeless are fighting Nike in Shibuya’s Miyashita Park
Homeless people and their advocates are battling plans by sportswear giant Nike to fund the renovation of a dank, squatter-friendly ‘park’ into a sports ground for youth
Less than a block away from where the fashionistas gather to shop for designer brands in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, a flight of stairs leads to a narrow park that has seen better days. Japanese zelkova and cherry blossom trees tower over mounds of discarded stuff: broken umbrellas, worn-out shoes, empty plastic bottles, teddy bears, shacks of plywood and plastic tarp. Two fenced-in futsal courts haven’t seen a game for months, and someone has sprayed graffiti on the bathroom walls and the pedestrian footbridge spanning the two-lane road that divides the park in two.
Only the old-timers in the area remember when Miyashita Park wasn’t such a wreck. For more than two years, Shibuya ward government has been planning a multi-million-dollar renovation for the park. The ward wants to add two climbing walls, a skateboarding area and an elevator, and Nike has agreed to pick up the construction tab of US$5 million (¥465.6 million) — the first time that a local government and a company will collaborate to upgrade a park in Japan. The U.S. sportswear giant also has agreed to pay ¥18.7 million a year for the naming rights through 2020.
The park, which is to be renamed Nike Miyashita Park, was scheduled to open in April. With the deal, Nike was likely counting on a boost for its brand in Japan, following the splashy opening of its new flagship shop in Tokyo’s Harajuku district last November. But work crews have yet to even break ground in the park.
Opposition to the renovation
The project has been held up by opposition from a group of anti-Nike activists, artists and support groups for the homeless who call themselves the Coalition to Protect Miyashita Park from Becoming Nike Park. Since news of the project first surfaced in 2008, the coalition has expressed outrage over the ward’s closed-door negotiations with Nike. They have staged protests and camped out in the park in order to prevent the construction from going forward.
Shibuya ward appears to be trying to avoid an uproar. Ward officials confirm that the deal was signed, but neither Nike nor the ward have made a formal announcement. Nike spokeswoman Yoko Mizukami says the company is letting the ward take the lead on such decisions.
The dispute over Miyashita Park is rooted in differing interpretations of the civic role of a park. Depending on whom you ask, the park in its current state either offers something for everyone or only benefits a few. The activists say the park should stay the way it is: Open to everyone. They argue that the ward wants to kick out the homeless people so that Nike can create a pay-for-use park.
Ward officials and local business owners say the park has long ceased to attract anyone but the homeless. They stress that selling the naming rights to the park isn’t the same as selling the park, and that the ward, not Nike, will manage the facilities. “Many people stopped going to the park after the homeless people moved in and built huts years ago,” says Akihiko Ozawa, director of Shibuya ward’s parks department. Parks officials have spoken with all 30 homeless people and offered help in finding a new place to live. “You will see a lot more people — even kids — in the park after we’re finished,” he says.
Nike says it merely wanted to create a space for children to play sports. “Miyashita Park has long been underutilized,” spokeswoman Yoko Mizukami says, in an e-mailed response to questions.
The coalition’s fight has become a cause célèbre for grass-roots activists in Japan and sparked protests in Tokyo and other cities around the world. On April 26, activists and artists demonstrated outside Nike’s flagship Tokyo store, demanding that the company back out of the project. For 20 minutes, they held up a blue handmade puppet — an avatar for the park — and passed out flyers before police arrived to break it up. “We want Nike to stay out of the park and Shibuya ward to scrap its plans,” says Misako Ichimura, a 38-year-old artist who has lived in the park since mid-March and is among the coalition’s leaders. Ichimura, who has contributed to the blog Artist in Residence Miyashita Park, says she intends to stay as long as the ward sticks to its plans.
A brief history of Miyashita Park
Miyashita Park looked a lot different when it was created in 1948. Black and white photos from the 1950s show two open fields below the railroad tracks with the Shibuya River flowing nearby. The park takes its name — “Miyashita” meaning “below royalty” — from its placement: relatives of Japan’s emperor had a residence nearby until it burned down in the Allied firebombing raids during World War 2.
Miyashita Park
Miyashita Park, north entrance. Graffiti and handpainted murals dot the footbridges and walls of the park.
In the 1960s, as Japan’s economy surged and more cars took to the roads, the Tokyo government decided to put in a street-level garage and replant the park on top. To get to Miyashita Park now, you have to climb a flight of steps. Locals say that was the beginning of the park’s decline. Teenagers brawled in the park, and homeless people took up residence. Theft and other petty crimes picked up in the area. By the 1990s, the park had become a shantytown for about 80 homeless people, many of whom had been laid off after Japan’s bubble economy popped.Today the park’s 10,800 square meters — roughly the size of two football fields — are sandwiched between the railroad tracks and a busy six-lane street. The park feels even narrower than it is because park officials put up a temporary fence just inside the perimeter to discourage homeless people from building shacks under the trees. The area has become cluttered with shoes, batteries and other unwanted items. Except for the activists who are camping in the park, the place is completely deserted at night. Locals say it’s been decades since families gathered in the park. “We used to go in summer when there was a plastic pool for kids,” says Shigeru Murayama, 63, who grew up nearby and has run yakitori restaurant Torifuku in an alleyway next to the park for nearly five decades.
Ken Hasebe’s personal mission
The park’s steady decay is a source of irritation for Ken Hasebe. A member of Shibuya’s ward assembly, Hasebe has been one of the leading proponents of the Miyashita Park cleanup. He grew up in Omotesando, about a mile from the park, and still lives nearby. His interest in the Nike project is personal, he says.
According to Hasebe and others, plans for Miyashita Park were originally tied to renovations for another park, Mitake, located less than a block away. In 2004, the ward and Nike built a basketball court in Mitake Park with recycled rubber from the soles of old shoes. But residents soon complained about the noise. Hasebe proposed working with Nike again to relocate the Michael Jordan Court to Miyashita Park. Those plans had to be scuttled after some assembly members pointed out that moving the court would deprive labor unions of a key gathering place for their demonstrations and marches.
Hasebe wasn’t ready to toss in the towel yet. Around this time, he started discussing with other ward officials the idea of turning Miyashita Park into a sports complex. The ward had put in two new futsal courts in 2006. Before the courts could be built, park officials had persuaded many of the homeless people in the park to move into government housing. Hasebe and others thought that another round of building might give them a chance to prod the homeless population to leave park grounds for good.
But what to build? A public skate park topped the shortlist. Skateboarders had come to be seen as a public nuisance. Some ward officials and assembly members thought a skate park might lure skateboarders from from train stations and plazas where they usually practiced their stunts. Later the skate park, which initially was to fill both sides of the park, was shrunk, and two climbing walls were inserted into the blueprint.
The problem was finding the money to pay for it all. The funds couldn’t come from public coffers. Years of recession and sluggish growth had led to a drop in tax revenues, straining the ward’s budget. To generate income, Shibuya started experimenting with the sale of naming rights for an events hall in 2006. Public bathrooms came next. The payoff hasn’t been bad. This fiscal year the ward expects its naming-rights contracts to bring in ¥118 million, according to budget figures.
In late 2007, Hasebe approached Nike and asked the company to pitch some ideas for Miyashita Park. The naming-rights scheme was floated as a possibility. “I was determined to get this done without using taxpayer money,” says Hasebe, in a plant-filled conference room on the fifth floor of the ward’s offices. “I wanted to create a new template for the parks. Look at most of them. They’re the same — same monkey bars, same slide, same sandbox. And there’s a lot you can’t do, like toss or kick a ball around. It’s boring.”
Nike’s proposal impressed ward officials. But they wanted to avoid a repeat of the backlash over the basketball court in Mitake Park. To get locals on board, Hasebe recruited another assembly member, Takeshi Ito, who had grown up near Miyashita Park. While Ito quietly held meetings with business owners and residents in the area, park officials began informing the homeless people in the park about the plan. Many business owners liked the idea. “The park’s bad image has affected businesses here,” says Murayama, the yakitori restaurant owner who is also head of the Nombei Yokocho Chamber of Commerce. “We support the renovations.”
The ward hadn’t yet publicly revealed its intentions. The general public got its first look at the plans in May 2008, when a small, local newspaper, Just Times Shibuya, broke the story. In a scathing report, the paper said that the head of the ward was ready to sign a deal with Nike that would give the company exclusive naming rights in Miyashita Park. “Park space where anyone can relax will be taken away and used for blatant commercial purposes,” it said. National dailies picked up the story.
Thus begins the backlash
The reports galvanized the activists. Many of them had worked for years on behalf of the city’s homeless, delivering food and lobbying government officials. The ward was their main adversary, but coalition members drew attention to their struggle in the park by taking aim at Nike, depicting themselves as the underdogs in a battle against a giant multinational corporation.
Along the railroad tracks, the coalition strung up banners for commuters to see. “No Nike”, “Park is Ours” and “Nike, Don’t Steal Miyashita Park!” they read. Inside the park, posters parodying Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan read “Just Doite!” (Just Move!). On the Internet, they have posted updates to two blogs (minnanokouenn.blogspot.com and airmiyashitapark.info/wordpress/), sent updates on Twitter and uploaded videos of their scuffles with ward officials to YouTube.
Others pitched in, including a documentary crew from Our Planet TV that released a video on YouTube and websites such as Nike Politics and Nike Boycotte Now. Some angry constituents called Hasebe and Ito and accused them of accepting pay from Nike. (The two deny receiving anything from Nike.)
In August, last year, Ozawa, Shibuya’s parks department head, held an informal meeting with activists in Miyashita Park. Ozawa announced that the homeless people in the park would have to go by September 1, but that the ward would help them find public housing. Ozawa took turns speaking into a megaphone with Daisuke Kuroiwa, who heads the Shibuya Free Association for the Right to Housing and Well-Being of the Homeless. Initially civil, the exchange turned into a shouting match. “You’re telling us for the first time that our friends who have been living in the park now have less than a month to leave?” asked Kuroiwa, a thin man with a bouffant hairdo. “You have kept the people who use this park, the homeless people living here and the constituents of Shibuya ward in the dark about your plans, earning the distrust of many.”
Ozawa, a balding, bespectacled man, listened with his arms folded across his chest, a grimace on his face. “We were in the midst of contract discussions with Nike Japan and had made a promise not to disclose the details. That’s why it took so long to deliver the news to everyone,” Ozawa replied.
“Where’s Nike?” someone yelled.
Tensions came to a head in mid-March. Ichimura, the artist, and several others pitched tents to sleep in the park. Days later, on March 16, parks department officials and workers, dressed in coveralls and hardhats, drove up in trucks and tried to fence off the park. Activists buried themselves in the sandbox, stood in the way, or jumped on the fences. Alerting others via Twitter and blogs, their numbers swelled to about 60. Again, Ozawa and Kuroiwa clashed.
“Do you think your decision reflects the will of the people?” Kuroiwa asked.
“Sorry, but yes, I do think it reflects what people want,” Ozawa said.
Within a couple of hours, the ward officials had retreated. The following evening, activists draped themselves in handmade “No Nike” clothes and staged a “fashion show” in front of Nike’s store in Harajuku. The two sides were at it again two weeks later when Ozawa and officials from builder Tokyu Construction Co. held a public hearing to go over the plans again.
Compromises, concessions… and crackdowns?
Despite their efforts, the anti-Nike coalition has won few concessions from Shibuya ward. The head of the ward, Toshitake Kuwahara, recently said he intends to pursue more deals like Miyashita Park. Assembly member Hasebe says the activists’ hardline stance and their lack of a compromise proposal made him think that “they are opposed to this for the sake of opposing it.” He adds, “No matter how good your ideas or intentions are, there will always be someone who disagrees.”
Nike, however, may be rethinking its strategy. Company spokeswoman Yoko Mizukami says Nike is discussing with ward officials the possibility of not having the company’s logo appear on signs at the park and instead putting the swoosh on helmets and other rental equipment. The company would still pay for the construction and the naming rights, says Mizukami. “Our main goal is to create an environment where people can have easier access to sports and to reinvigorate the community,” not to advertise the brand, she says.
Hasebe acknowledged that the ward had made some mistakes. “We probably should have been more open about the process,” says the assembly member. “At one point, I proposed opening the bidding process to other companies. Ward officials were torn. We were already talking with Nike by then so it was difficult to let other companies enter with a bid.”
On March 31, the ward assembly voted 26 to 7 to approve the Miyashita Park plan. The park is now slated to open in November. Ward officials say they expect to charge ¥200 for use of the skate park (¥100 for children) and ¥350 for the climbing wall (¥200 for children).
On April 20, assembly member Ito rode his bike to the park to check things out. He was met by three of the activists. (They posted details of the encounter on Twitter.) Ito said that if they didn’t leave the park the ward would have no choice but to remove them by force. “I told them, ‘It would be inevitable,'” Ito recalls later. So when does he think the ward will act? “I’d rather not say,” he says. “When the time calls for it, it will happen.”
http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/brawl-over-miyashita-park-shibuya-snares-nike-565070
Hunger strike at immigration center
About 60 detainees at the East Japan Immigration Control Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, have been on hunger strike since Monday to seek better treatment, a Tokyo-based volunteer group member said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, center spokesman Hiroki Shimizu confirmed to The Japan Times that about 30 detainees, rather than 60, have refused to eat since Monday.
“The living conditions at immigration detention centers are really bad. We have been asking for improvement, but nothing has happened,” Mitsuru Miyasako of Bond, a group supporting foreign workers in Japan, told The Japan Times.
According to a press statement from Bond, the detainees are demanding the detention period be shortened to at most six months, bail for temporary release be no more than ¥200,000 and those younger than 18 not be confined.
Currently, bail ranges from ¥500,000 to ¥800,000 even for refugees, the group said.
Those participating in the hunger strike are from Sri Lanka, China, Uganda, Pakistan and Brazil, according to Miyasako. Kurds from Turkey are also refusing to eat, he said.
Many of the approximately 380 detainees in the center have valid reasons for not returning to their home countries, since some face persecution at home and others have family members in Japan, Miyasako claimed.
Among many complaints, medical services are insufficient in the center, he added.
“The center has just one doctor on the premises. Persuading immigration officers to let detainees go to a hospital for symptoms the doctor is unable to treat is really hard. If they allow it, detainees are cuffed and escorted by immigration officers,” Miyasako said.
About 200 in the Ushiku center have been detained there for at least six months in awful living conditions, Bond said.
Two detainees committed suicide this year, the group said in the statement, a fact the center’s Shimizu confirmed.
Meanwhile, Shimizu said the center is “constantly trying its best to accommodate detainees’ requests” and he does not consider their treatment to be lacking. The center has one doctor who works four days a week and who sometimes comes to the center in an emergency, he said.
Language sets high hurdle for caregiver candidates
FOREIGN NURSES
Since the first batch of Indonesian nurses and caregivers arrived in 2008 under a new bilateral economic partnership agreement, 570 have come to Japan, as have 310 Filipinos under another EPA that took effect two years ago.
But just two Indonesians and one Filipino — out of 254 applicants — passed Japan’s nursing qualification exam in February, becoming the first successful candidates to receive the right to work in this country indefinitely.While 89.5 percent of all exam-takers passed this year, the corresponding number for Indonesians and Filipinos was only 1.2 percent.
In response to the results as well as burdens on their employers, the number of accepting hospitals and welfare facilities in fiscal 2010 dropped by one-third for Indonesians and by half for Filipinos.
As the second batch of Filipino candidates arrived in Japan on Sunday and Indonesia is now selecting the third batch, the government has started to take measures to increase the examination pass rate.
Following are basic questions and answers about foreign nurse and caregiver applicants entering Japan under the EPAs:
Why did Japan start accepting nurse and caregiver candidates from Indonesia and the Philippines?
The acceptance is part of bilateral EPAs, one with Indonesia that took effect on July 1, 2008, and another with the Philippines that started on Dec. 11 the same year.
Under the accords, Japan can benefit from the reduction or removal of tariffs on Japanese goods. In return, Japan agreed to accept nurses and caregivers from the two countries as candidates for certification to work here.
Although the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has denied that accepting foreign caregivers is part of efforts to resolve the manpower shortage in health care, about 60 percent of hospitals and about 50 percent of welfare facilities that have accepted Indonesian candidates said they offered them jobs hoping to improve staff levels, according to a survey conducted by the health ministry.
What is required to become a qualified nurse or caregiver in Japan under the EPAs?
Both Indonesians and Filipinos must be qualified nurses in their home countries. Plus, Indonesian nurses must have more than two years of experience. Filipino nurses should have three years of experience.
For caregivers, Indonesians must be graduates of nursing universities or schools that require at least three years of study. Filipinos must be graduates of four-year universities or nursing colleges.
All are required to take six months of Japanese-language training before working for care facilities.
Nurses must pass the annual exam within three years, while caregivers get four years. To be qualified to take the exam, caregiver applicants must have three years of on-the-job training in Japan, which means they have only one shot to pass the exam before they are asked to return to their countries.
What other options for qualifying are available?
Filipino candidates can undergo a caregiver-trainee program that doesn’t require them to pass the national exam.
To qualify for the program, one must be a graduate of a four-year-university in the Philippines.
After completing the six-month Japanese-language course, they are required to graduate from Japanese caregiver schools, a process that takes two to four years.
Under this program, candidates automatically become qualified caregivers upon graduation.
How much are the nurses and caregivers paid?
Both EPAs guarantee the Indonesians and Filipinos will be paid salaries equivalent to their Japanese counterparts.
On average, this would amount to between ¥150,000 and ¥160,000 a month, according to Hiroya Yaguchi, a manager of Japan International Corp. of Welfare Services, an affiliate of and the only placement organization appointed by the health ministry.
Because pay levels differ among hospitals and welfare facilities, there is no set pay standard, Yaguchi said.
Some people are receiving around ¥200,000 per month, while the lowest salary among the accepting facilities is around ¥120,000, according to JICWELS.
However, because living costs vary by region, salaries can’t be compared simply by their amount, Yaguchi noted.
Do the accepting institutions provide accommodations?
Some hospital and care facilities provide free dormitories for employees. There are also institutions that rent out living quarters, and in some cases employees receive housing subsidies, according to JICWELS.
Do candidates get any support to prepare for the national exam?
The accepting institutions are responsible for teaching the candidates Japanese and helping them to prepare for the national exam, but the extent of such support varies between facilities.
According to a health ministry survey in February, about 76 percent of employers said Japanese nurses are helping candidates to prepare for the national exam, and about 30 percent said they are hiring teachers from outside.
Why has the number of hospitals and welfare institutions accepting Indonesian and Filipino candidates sharply dropped for fiscal 2010?
Experts attribute the decline to the employers’ financial and manpower burdens.
Employers pay an initial cost of about ¥600,000 per candidate.
The cost includes part of the six-month Japanese training fees and living expenses, as well as commission and placement fees to pay for JICWELS and its counterparts in Indonesia and the Philippines.
In addition, employers must pay ¥21,000 per person per year to JICWELS as a management fee.
Also, in many cases Japanese staff are helping candidates to study for the national exam. This has become a burden for facilities already suffering manpower shortages.
What are the candidates’ main linguistic problems?
Experts say kanji and technical terms used in the national exam pose a high hurdle for Indonesians and Filipinos. The health ministry is considering using simpler terms in the nursing exam.
Is the government doing anything to improve the situation?
Starting in fiscal 2010, the government will pay a yearly ¥295,000 subsidy for each hospital that accepts one or more nurse candidates and ¥117,000 per candidate a year to cover training expenses, according to the labor ministry.
Facilities that accept caregivers will receive a ¥235,000 government subsidy per person each year.
Also, JICWELS is providing so-called e-learning at all the hospitals that have accepted nurse candidates. The Internet learning system provides exercise books and past national tests in Japanese, English and Indonesian.
In addition, JICWELS is distributing Japanese-language textbooks to hospitals with nurse candidates this fiscal year.
However, these support measures are currently available only to nursing candidates.
Fresh batch of Filipino nurses, caregivers to leave for Japan
A fresh batch of over 100 candidate nurses and caregivers will leave the Philippines for Japan this weekend to begin free language and skills training, officials said Saturday.
A total of 46 nurses and 70 caregivers, the third group of Filipino health workers to be sent to Japan, will depart Sunday to undergo a six-month Japanese language and cultural course before beginning work in Japanese health care institutions, said Jennifer Manalili, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
Two other caregivers already fluent in Japanese will leave in June.
Manalili said the screening for this year’s batch of health workers under the bilateral program, now still in its second year, was “more rigorous to ensure an excellent and well prepared corps of candidates.”
Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura led a sendoff ceremony for the candidates on Friday, calling the opening up Japan to more Filipino nurses and care workers under the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement that came into effect in December 2008 a “testimony to the deepening relations” between the two countries.
He said the scheme will be instrumental in changing not just the lives of Filipino health workers “but the cooperative landscape of our two nations as well.”
The envoy told the candidates they will face various challenges as they work in an entirely different environment and interact with people with a different culture and language, but should “stay focused on the objectives you have set for yourself.”
“But do not let the unfamiliar faze you. Let it be your motivation to develop your skills and further improve yourselves in your respective fields,” he said.
Katsura extended his congratulations to Ever Lalin of the first batch of Filipino health workers for having cleared the language barrier and passed the Japanese Nursing Licensure Examination a mere 10 months after she arrived in Japan last year.
“I hope (Lalin’s) achievement will inspire all of you,” he said, urging them “to dedicate yourselves to your studies and remaining steadfast to your goals.”
The latest deployment of Filipino health workers comes amid a fresh Philippine proposal to conduct the six-month language and skills- training here in the Philippines so that they could remain close to their families.
The entry of Filipino nurses and caregivers to Japan is one of the main highlights of the bilateral economic partnership agreement concluded in 2006. Japan has also been accepting health workers from Indonesia.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9FIHS4G0&show_article=1
Chiba city’s native speaker English classes canceled after ALT contracts found illegal
This is just more reason to unionize. Stop illegal dispatching and claim higher wages and better benefits. Don’t be taken advantage of by these middlemen and these Boards of Education that want to hire you without paying you what they should and without affording you what is rightfully yours under Japanese law. This “cooling off period” is just a way to get around dispatch law, which clearly states that the dispatched should be directly hired after a clearly defined amount of time. The labor office’s guidelines do not trump the law, and if ALTs in Chiba stand up to this, there is a good chance that they can end this illegal dispatching, claiming more money and more rights for themselves under the law.
Solidarity,
Erich
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100417p2a00m0na019000c.html
KASHIWA, Chiba — Public schools here have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city’s board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers.
According to the Kashiwa Municipal Board of Education, it has been instructed by the local labor office to change its labor relationship with foreign assistant language teachers (ALTs) in the city’s elementary and junior high schools after it engaged in illegal employment practices.
The role of labor unions
Japanese workers mark this year’s May Day amid continued hard economic times and a harsh employment situation. This is an opportune time for serious discussion on the role labor unions can play to create a society where people can toil with hope for the future.
Japan’s unemployment rate in February remained stuck at relatively high 4.9 percent. (The government said Friday the jobless rate for March increased to 5 percent.)
In 2009, full-time workers grossed an average monthly wage of 294,500 yen ($3,130), including allowances, but excluding overtime pay and bonuses, according to the labor ministry. The figure represents the fourth consecutive year of decrease. Also, the margin of decrease, 1.5 percent from 2008, was the largest since 1976 when comparable data became available.
Bearing the brunt of the job crunch are non-regular workers and employees of small and midsize companies.
Many of the requests for advice received by the Labor Consultation Center, a nonprofit organization, come from people working for smaller companies. Non-regular workers accounted for nearly 30 percent of the inquiries. The center, which is supported by the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Tobu, received a record 600 or so requests for consultation in March. Thirty percent involved issues related to dismissal.
As globalization intensifies, many companies are locked in fierce competition with overseas rivals. Many full-time workers have been replaced by dispatched and other non-regular staff. While these people have weaker job security, they now account for one-third of the nation’s work force.
As a result, there is a strong sense of crisis within Rengo (The Japanese Trade Union Confederation), the nation’s largest labor umbrella organization.
At Rengo’s central May Day rally held Thursday in Tokyo, Rengo President Nobuaki Koga called for “solidarity among all workers.” The rally was attended by many non-regular workers. This is because the May Day meeting for such people, which until last year was held separately, has been integrated into the central event. Three years ago, Rengo set up a special center to help non-regular workers.
For this year’s shunto spring labor negotiations, Rengo has promised to do more to improve the working conditions of all working people. It has also begun talks with the temporary staffing service industry for better working conditions for temporary workers.
Rengo’s mainstream members are company-based unions that organize mainly full-time employees of large companies. These unions have been supporting the traditional Japanese system of lifetime employment and seniority-based pay scales. As these traditions have been crumbling, however, Rengo is under immense pressure to tackle issues related to the new reality.
Corporate activities are straddling national borders, while differences in employment conditions between regular and non-regular workers are growing in and outside the nation. Given this background, labor unions will keep losing their influences if they continue to remain focused on domestic problems without seeking international cooperation.
If Japanese labor unions intend to adjust to this age of globalization, they should, for instance, make policy proposals to spread the European-style principle of an “equal wage for work of equal value” to narrow the wage gap between regular and non-regular workers. At the same time, they need to cooperate more closely with their overseas counterparts.
A good start would be for the company-based unions belonging to Rengo to demand better treatment of non-regular workers during their negotiations with the management. Through their actions, they should demonstrate their commitment to improving the fortunes of fellow workers, despite differences in employment status.
Unions should be inspired by the achievement at Hiroshima Electric Railway Co., which has put all its non-regular workers with renewable one-year employment contracts on the regular payroll.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama attended Rengo’s May Day rally. The organization provided the largest power base of the Democratic Party of Japan in last year’s Lower House election.
But such endorsement by the nation’s leader is meaningless unless labor unions start speaking out and acting for the well-being of all workers.
First May Day in Post-LDP Japan: Workers Say, “Nothing Has Changed”
Over the last ten years, wages in Japan declined 10% even as the profits of big corporations doubled.
The average manufacturing worker saw a month’s pay disappear from his annual earning last year. Meanwhile, none of the Democratic Party’s electoral promises — the removal of the Futenma base, health care reform to relieve the hardship of the elderly, labor law reform to diminish the exploitation of contract workers hired thorough employment agencies, and so on — has been kept.
Wages see first rise in 22 months
Wages rose for the first time in 22 months in March after a pickup in manufacturing led to a sharp increase in overtime pay, the labor ministry said in a preliminary report released Friday.
Workers at companies with five employees or more earned ¥275,637 a month on average, with overtime and other nonscheduled pay gaining 11.7 percent to ¥18,204, the ministry said.
Their scheduled pay, however, shrank 0.2 percent to ¥245,503 on average, marking the 20th consecutive monthly decline.
“It still remains to be seen if overall cash wages will continue growing as they have,” a ministry official said.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said overtime rose 13.3 percent overall in March, led by a sharp 56.1 percent jump in the manufacturing sector.
Overall wages data for January, meanwhile, were revised to a decline of 0.2 percent from the preliminary 0.1 percent gain reported in early March.
Separately, the ministry said a total of 83,114 businesses had applied for government subsidies to maintain employment in March, up 3,378 from the previous month and the first rise in two months.
Although applications from big businesses dropped by 260, those from small businesses leaped by 3,638, it said.
Japan Mar Average Wages +0.8% Y/Y, 1st Rise In 22 Months
The average monthly total cash earnings per regular employee in Japan rose by a preliminary 0.8% year-over-year to Y275,637 in March, posting the first y/y rise in 22 months, data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released on Friday showed.
It followed a 0.6% fall in February, when the pace of the y/y drop accelerated from -0.2% in January, because the delayed year-end bonus payment included in the January data fell out of the calculation in February.
March’s rise in the average wage was the first since +0.2% in May 2008.
The latest data also showed other improvement in the wage situation: overtime pay rose for the third month in a row, pushing up overall compensation, although the “base wage” — the key indicator for a recovery — still showed a slight drop from the year-earlier level.
Another indicator of a gradual improvement in the labor market was the number of regular employees, which posted the second straight year-on-year rise in March after showing the first gain in 10 months in February.
Overtime pay in March surged 11.7% year-on-year after +8.1% in February, aided by a jump in overtime hours worked at factories (payback for the plunge in early 2009). January’s 2.4% gain in overtime pay was the first y/y gain in 18 months.
Overtime hours worked and overtime pay hit bottom in March last year, which means they will show year-on-year growth for the next several months.
In inflation adjusted terms, the average total wage rose a preliminary 2.1% y/y in March after rising 0.6% in February.
This was the third straight y/y gain, with real wages improving gradually from the record drop of 5.2% posted in June last year.
Overtime hours worked in the manufacturing sector posted the fourth straight year-on-year rise in March, surging by another record increase of 56.1%, surpassing the previous record growth of 54.6% hit in February 2010 and recovering steadily from the record drop of 48.9% in March 2009.
Moreover, overtime hours at factories rose 0.8% month-on-month on a seasonally adjusted basis, showing the 12th straight m/m gain.
Overtime hours have been recovering fast since October 2009, led by the automobile and electronics sectors. This has pushed up the level of overtime pay.
Total overtime hours worked for all industries rose by a fresh record of +13.3% y/y in March, topping the previous record gain of +11.4% marked in the previous month. January’s +4.4% was the first year-on-year rise in 18 months.
Total hours worked for all industries continued to improve in March, up by 3.2%, after rising 0.6% in February. The 0.4% rise in January was the first y/y gain in 18 months.
Three years of steady job creation until April 2009 were replaced by job losses or flat employment levels through the end of last year, but the latest data indicate a recovery in the labor market.
The number of regular workers rose by 0.2% in March after rising at the same pace in February. The gain in February was the first y/y gain in 10 months since +0.3% in April 2009.
Cash earnings include overtime and bonuses. Regular employees are workers on permanent payrolls as well as those with part-time status.
Average “base” salaries, or scheduled cash earnings, at surveyed companies that employ five or more people fell 0.2% y/y in March vs. -1.0% in February, posting the 20th straight y/y drop, but the pace of decline has decelerated gradually.
Bonus and other special cash earnings, which tend to fluctuate sharply, rose 11.2% y/y in March vs. -26.1% in February.