Public Service and restriction of basic labour rights in Japan

Abstract

6 | International Union Rights | 26/1 FOCUS | UNION RIGHTS OF STATE ADMINISTRATION AND ESSENTIAL SERVICES WORKERS Public Service and restriction of basic labour rights in Japan Still restricted: basic rights for Japanese public service workers In Japan, the basic labour rights of public sector workers employed by central and local government are largely restricted. In legal terms, trade unions in the public sector are called ‘employee organizations’. They have the right to organise, but do not have the rights to adopt collective bargaining agreement, nor to strike. This is a high hurdle or obstacle to achieve better working conditions, as we negotiate with the National Personnel Authority for central government employees and with each local government’s personnel commission or equality commission for local government employees. As a result, their terms and conditions are regulated by law, ordinance and orders legally committed to recommendation or opinion by those compensatory structures. However, this broad restriction violates the Constitution of Japan, which granted basic labour rights for all workers. The ILO supervisory bodies have repeatedly criticised the government of Japan, and they have requested improvements to rights for public servants. We, Japanese public sector unions, have struggled to restore our rights. The restrictions have posed a lot of challenges and difficulties First, we face decreasing wage standards for public service workers, particularly low starting pay as well as blunting wage increases for workers over 45 years of age. This particular pattern of public service workers wage reflects that of private sector workers. In 1973, the Japanese trade union movement achieved a 20.1 percent wage increase in the ‘Shunto’ (‘Spring Offensive’) collective bargaining, and in 1974 it achieved 32.9 percent. The number of strikes in 1974 was 11,576, which is the highest number since the Second World War. Business quickly reacted, and organised a counterattack at the bargaining table, and on the right to strike – not only in the private sector, but also in the public sector, so that wage increases could not take place by workers’ strike. Secondly, the restriction caused deterioration of administration. Under the principle of separation of powers, legislation is superior to the power of administration. Separate from the Diet (parliament in Japan), the administration is neutral and maintained stability and continuity in order to secure rights and interests of the people. Taking into consideration that the will of the cabinet consists of parliamentarians, the administration has maintained neutrality by collecting objective and fair data and statistics, or always made multiple proposals in policy issues. However, due to the lack of equal labour-employer negotiation and basic rights, political power now has superiority in policy proposals in a top-down way. In recent years, we have witnessed a series of frauds and the use of illicit statistics or data to support positions of the cabinet. Thirdly, this creates a lack of confidence in the political process, and politics is becoming not ‘for the people’ but also ‘for the handful number of ruling people’. We do believe it is vital to realise democracy in public sector workplaces for more open and democratic administration processes for the people. Basic labour rights for public service workers are vital for decent administration. I also have to point out that the lack of basic labour rights impoverishes public service workers, including those in essential services. They are denied an independent-minded way of work, and are working without any rights under de facto oppression by the employer. The most serious case is the prohibition of the rights to organise for firefighters and prison staff, a violation of ILO Convention 87. The government has implemented a policy to privatise or outsource prisons. If the prisons are privatised, workers should have basic labour rights employed by private entity. There is no reason to restrict the right to organise for prison staff. The government claims firefighters are regarded as workers in an essential service and as part of police force. And in fact, the Japanese fire service was formed in 1872 as part of the police organization. However, it was around 70 years ago that the fire service came under the control of municipal governments, just after the Second World War. During the...