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Individual Affiliate Unions (IAUs) andLabor Non Profit Organizations(Labor NPOs) in JapanPaper prepared for the Symposium Session “Alternative Forms of WorkerRepresentation: Lessons from Selected Sectors and Countries,” LERA 64th AnnualMeeting, January 6–8, 2012, Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago

Koshi EndoMeiji University

Ken YamazakiJapan Institute for Labor Policy and Training

Citation without authorization from the authors is prohibited.

If you have any inquiries about this paper, please contact Koshi Endo, Meiji University, at

[email protected].

LERA64EndoYamazaki20111226b.doc- 1 -

Introduction

Some types of workers in Japan are excluded from conventional collective bargaining. How

these workers protect their rights is the main theme of this paper.

It should be noted that exclusion from conventional collective bargaining has a different

meaning in Japan than it does in the United States. In the U.S., it strongly implies that these

types of workers face a statutory exclusion as prescribed in the National Labor Relations Act

(NLRA), whereas this is not often the case in Japan.

Conventional collective bargaining in Japan refers to a collective bargaining process in which

in-house unions in private enterprises stand as the party on the labor side, and “exclusion” means

being excluded from this collective bargaining process. Workers excluded from the collective

bargaining process organize themselves separately from in-house unions, so as to protect their

rights. Among such organizations, the two types indicated in the title of this paper, that is,

individual affiliate unions (IAUs) and labor non-profit organizations (labor NPOs), are worthy of

note.

Scholarship on industrial relations in Japan has been strongly influenced by Dunlop [1958].

Because of this, over a long period of time, its focus has been a style of collective bargaining and

labor-management negotiation in which in-house unions in private enterprises stand as the party

on the labor side. Recently, some areas of study on industrial relations in Japan have come much

closer to the study of business management, to the extent that the two have almost merged. This is

one way in which the study of industrial relations in Japan has decayed, another being that such

scholarship has paid no attention whatsoever to IAUs or labor NPOs.

Under such circumstances, a few scholars in labor sociology who were not as strongly

influenced by Dunlop [1958] have made a study of IAUs and presented their results in the

Japanese language, and some of these studies have recently been published in English (Urano &

Stewart [2007, 2009], Suzuki [2008]). On the other hand, until recently, labor NPOs have rarely

been taken up as the subject of study even among scholars in labor sociology. A theoretical

framework has not yet been sufficiently established for studying IAUs and labor NPOs

This paper focuses on IAUs and labor NPOs; in relation to IAUs, it relies on study results

arrived at thus far in Japan, including those of Endo and Yamazaki, and in relation to the Working

Women’s Network (WWN), a type of labor NPO, it is based on Endo [2010].

1. Exclusion in Japan

1-1 The less exclusionary Labor Unions Act of Japan

The Labor Unions Act of Japan, which is applicable to workers employed by private

enterprises,1) is less exclusionary in its treatment of workers. As opposed to the U.S. NLRA, the

Labor Unions Act of Japan and the way that it operates is more advantageous in terms of the

protection of workers’ rights with regard to the following three points.

First, the scope of workers who are excluded from the application of the Labor Unions Act of

Japan is not so broad (only the workers set forth in Article 2, items (i) and (ii), and Article 3 are


excluded). It is more likely that some types of workers who are excluded from the scope of

“employee” prescribed in Section 2(3) of the NLRA of the United States―for instance, any

individual employed as an agricultural laborer or in the domestic service of any family or person

at his home, or any individual having the status of an independent contractor―would be covered

by the Labor Unions Act of Japan.

Secondly, the Labor Unions Act of Japan does not define a “labor union” as only including

workers’ organizations that stand as the party on the labor side in collective bargaining. For

example, workers’ organizations with purposes that are not confined to mutual aid service or

other welfare service are eligible as labor unions under the Labor Unions Act, which is the

interpretation inferred in the provisions of Article 2, item (iii) of the Labor Unions Act, which

excludes workers’ organizations “whose purposes are confined to mutual aid service or other

welfare service” from the definition of “labor unions.”

As a good example of the first and second advantages, independent master carpenters in

Japan, called Hitori-Oyakata, fall within the category of “independent contractors” as set forth in

the NLRA, but they form labor unions to which the Labor Unions Act of Japan applies. The

National Federation of Construction Workers’ Unions (Zenkensoren) is the nationwide body

consisting of these unions, and more than 600,000 union members are affiliated with the

federation. Zenkensoren provides mutual insurance as one of its important activities, but of course

it engages in various other activities. Nevertheless, it rarely commits itself to collective

bargaining with the members’ employers.

Thirdly, the Labor Unions Act of Japan and the way that it operates sets very relaxed

conditions that need to be met when labor unions stand as the party to negotiations with the

members’ employers. The bargaining unit system as prescribed in the NLRA is not in use in

Japan. Accordingly, when a worker in a particular enterprise joins a labor union, the labor union

is authorized to represent that worker and propose negotiations with the worker’s employer

(Article 6). When this happens, the employer is obligated to accept the proposal of negotiation

(Article 7, item (ii)).2) Thus, the third advantage enables individual affiliate unions (IAUs) to exist

and function as labor unions; but for this advantage, most IAUs would not be able to exist.

1-2 In-house unions, which are more exclusionary

In-house unions in Japanese private enterprises are more likely to exclude workers, due to the

following three organizational features.

(a) In-house unions, through their bylaws, limit their membership solely to workers employed by

the enterprises in which that particular union is established. This is the nature of in-house unions.

Many of these unions further limit their membership to only “regular workers,” either in their

bylaws or according to customary practice. There is no strict, generally accepted definition of the

term “regular workers.” Even in the labor statistics taken by the Japanese government, whether

certain workers are categorized as regular workers depends on how they are referred to in their

enterprises; those who are called “regular workers” in their enterprises are treated as “regular

workers” in labor statistics. Roughly defined, among workers employed for an indefinite term,

those who are expected to make and who expect to enjoy a lifetime commitment are “regular


workers.” In 2007, there were 23.799 million male regular workers and 10.526 million female

regular workers (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications [2008]). The large gender gap

in these numbers should be noted.

Many in-house unions exclude “non-regular workers.” In the labor statistics taken by the

Japanese government, those who fall within this category are referred to by different names in

their respective enterprises, for example, “part-time workers,” “arbeiters” (temporary workers),

“dispatched workers (from temporary staffing agencies),” “contract employees,” and “entrusted

employees.” The number of non-regular workers has been rapidly increasing, reaching 5.91

million among males and 12.988 million among females (Ministry of Internal Affairs and

Communications [2008]). Again, the large gender gap in these numbers should be noted;

specifically, it should be noted that 55.3% of female workers were employed as non-regular

workers.

(b) As shown in Table 1, in-house unions are unevenly distributed, or more specifically, most

in-house unions are in large enterprises. This table indicates the labor statistics published annually

by the Japanese government, which include the number of union members and the estimated

unionization rate in the private sector, by size of enterprise. Such data classified by size of

enterprise are available in Japan because most labor unions are set up as in-house unions. As is

clear from this phenomenon of uneven distribution, it is no exaggeration to say that in-house

unions can exist only in large enterprises.

Workers employed by SMEs or very small enterprises where there is no in-house union do

not have the option of joining any existing in-house union. Therefore, if they want to be

members of an in-house union, they have to form one within their own enterprises, a task that is

difficult at present. In this respect, these workers are “excluded” from in-house unions.

(c) In-house unions do not tend to protect female union members who remain in the workforce.

Under the seniority-based management system, it is not rare for employers to treat female union

members who remain in the workforce poorly in comparison to male union members in terms of

promotion and pay increases. At some point, the female union members become aware that they

are being treated unfairly. However, oftentimes the in-house unions to which they belong are not

eager to rectify such unfair treatment. Some female union members go to court, demanding that

their treatment be improved, but in most cases, their in-house unions do not support them. Thus,

female union members have membership in in-house unions, but in effect they are “excluded”

from them. The reason for this attitude on the part of in-house unions may be that they and the

management share a strong belief in the gender role theory, i.e. that men are the breadwinners and

women are the housewives. They do not think that it is normal for female workers to remain in

the workforce and they do not take their inequality seriously.3)

Based on features (a) and (b), in-house unions can be described as labor unions consisting of

regular workers in large enterprises. On the other hand, workers in SMEs and non-regular

workers are excluded from in-house unions. Individual affiliate unions (IAUs) are the


representative example of the labor unions that organize workers who are excluded from in-house

unions.

Feature (c) suggests that some workers are excluded from in-house unions despite their

membership in them.4) These workers often attempt to protect their rights by taking legal action,

and organizations have been established in order to support them in their legal battles. Labor

NPOs are the representative example of such workers’ organizations.

2 Individual Affiliate Unions (IAUs)

There is no particular qualification that is needed in order for a person to become a member of

an individual affiliate union (IAU). This is a great point of difference from an in-house union,

which requires its members to be workers employed by that particular company. Members of

IAUs are workers who join the unions solely at their own discretion, and IAUs organize those

workers across company boundaries. In other words, IAUs can be formed by any type of worker.

IAUs use labor consultation services as the major means of recruiting their members. More

specifically, when an IAU hears a worker's complaints about the discriminatory treatment that he

or she is suffering, it will try to persuade that worker to join, explaining that becoming a member

will allow the IAU to propose negotiations with the employers on the worker's behalf. The Labor

Union Act in Japan allows this type of negotiation approach. Another advantage of IAUs is their

small size, which enables them to easily form networks with other IAUs as well as NPOs and

experts.

According to our estimates, at present, there are about 300 IAUs in Japan, and 30 to 50

thousand workers are members. Among them, 10 to 20 thousand members are non-regular

workers. These some 300 IAUs can be divided into the following three types. There are more than

200 of the first type of union, more than those of the second and third types put together (Endo

[2011]).

2-1 Unions established by regional labor union organizations: Type 1

Sohyo (the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan), which was a central organization of

labor unions, organized chikuro, local councils of in-house unions affiliated with Sohyo in each

locality, until it was dissolved in 1989. In 1984, the chikuro of Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, took a

growing interest in the increasing number of part-time employees, and established a union called

Edogawa Union, which admits part-time employees in Edogawa Ward as its members,

irrespective of the companies where they work. The name of this union contains the English term

union, which is written and pronounced as “yunion” according to Japanese (katakana) syllabary,

and this is the first labor union to use the Japanese-written form of the term union in its name. The

aim of such naming was to emphasize the characteristic of Edogawa Union as an individual

affiliate union that part-time employees can join at their own discretion.

As the Edogawa Union began to draw attention, similar labor unions whose names contained

the word union started to be established nationwide. In 1988, a book entitled Komyuniti Yunion

Sengen (Community Union Manifesto) was published, describing the activities of these unions


and recommending their formation in greater numbers. The First National Meeting of Community

Unions was held in 1989. The Community Union National Network (CUNN) was established in

1990, following the dissolution of Sohyo and the inauguration of Rengo (Japanese Trade Union

Confederation), and is still in existence today. Many unions that were established under such

circumstances are referred to by the term community union, which has become a common word in

Japanese.

In the beginning of the 2000s, Rengo adopted a policy of encouraging its local chapters to form

IAUs. These IAUs are not related to the CUNN. Rengo calls its unions of this first type chi-iki

(district) unions. Local chapters of Zenroren (National Confederation of Labor unions) have also

set up a number of IAUs, separately from the CUNN. Zenroren calls its unions of this first type

local unions.5)

2-2 Transformation of ippan-kumiai (general unions): Type 2

In the 1960s, a new type of labor union, different from in-house unions and called

gohdoh-rohso (joint or amalgamated labor unions) was created. A significant feature of an

amalgamated labor union is that it provides in its constitution that workers may join the

organization based only on their own willingness to do so. Theoretically, the constitution enabled

an amalgamated labor union to organize employees who belonged to different companies, or in

other words, to take non-regular or part-time employees as well as employees of SMEs into its

membership. This point completely distinguishes amalgamated labor unions from in-house unions,

because the constitution of an in-house union limits the people who qualify for membership to

incumbent employees at the particular company. Many amalgamated labor unions use the term

ippan-kumiai (general union) as part of their names.

In most cases, however, the reality of the amalgamated labor union was inconsistent with its

ideal. The primary reason is that the amalgamated labor unions that actually existed were a kind

of federation of small in-house unions of SMEs, and they had few or no members who had joined

them independently. The secondary reason is that the actual members of amalgamated labor

unions were all or mostly all regular employees.

As time went by, some amalgamated labor unions in metropolitan areas gained more members

who had joined them independently, which is what these unions were originally intended for, and

among these new members, the number of non-regular employees increased. On the other hand,

the percentage of members who belonged to in-house unions decreased, and this transformation

became obvious in the 1990s. Against this backdrop, some of the amalgamated unions that place

an emphasis on organizing members who join them independently use the Japanese-written form

of the term union in their official or popular names.

2-3 Unions whose members are among specific categories of workers: Type 3

In December 1993, the Tokyo Managers' Union was established, mainly targeting workers in

managerial posts who would join the union independently. This may be the first union in Japan

aimed at organizing a specific category of workers across company boundaries. Driven by the

creation of this union, Women's Union Tokyo was established in March 1995, followed by the


Metropolitan Youth Union established in December 2000. This movement further encouraged

specific categories of workers, such as mangers, female workers, and young workers, to form

IAUs nationwide one after another, with names that represent their attributes.

There are also IAUs which have many foreign workers as their members. For example,

Kanagawa City Union (Kanagawa Prefecture), Union Mie (Mie Prefecture), and Mukogawa

Union (Hyogo Prefecture) are IAUs in which most members are ethnically Japanese workers from

South American countries such as Brazil and Peru. Other IAUs that organize foreign workers

include Goryeo Roren (Osaka Prefecture), which organizes permanent ethnic Korean residents of

Japan, and the General Union (Osaka Prefecture), which organizes foreign teachers of English

from English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

2-4 Comparison with worker centers in the United States

IAUs in Japan are similar to worker centers in the United States, in that they are

community-based organizations and they organize low-wage workers. Because of these common

features, their activities are also similar. From this perspective, this section compares the major

activities of worker centers in the United States, which are listed below, with the activities of

IAUs in Japan, and gives some comments on the similarity and differences between the two.

Activities of workers centers in the United States

(1) Provide members with English education

(2) Provide members with education about laws and systems related to the protection of workers’

rights, such as immigration law, labor law, anti-discrimination law, and compensation for

industrial accidents

(3) Run campaigns to protest employers’ unfair labor practices against members and demand their

compliance with law

(4) Provide members with legal aid when they are in need of legal remedies to solve problems

such as nonpayment of wages and unfair discharge

(5) Engage in de facto collective bargaining, though not the collective bargaining provided for by

the NLRA

Comments from the perspective of comparison with IAUs in Japan

With regard to (5), IAUs in Japan may engage in collective bargaining as provided in the Labor

Unions Act, which greatly differs from worker centers in the United States. It should be noted

that when an IAU in Japan represents one union member, it engages in negotiation, not

collective bargaining, with the employer.

With regard to (3), IAUs in Japan also run such campaigns, but they can also take other actions

because they are allowed to negotiate with the employers of their members.

With regard to (4), IAUs in Japan also provide such legal aid. Problems may not always be

solved through the negotiation between IAUs and the employers. In that case, IAUs receive help

from lawyers and support their members in bringing actions to court.

With regard to (2), IAUs in Japan also provide education in labor-related laws and systems.


With regard to (1), some IAUs in Japan with which many foreign workers are affiliated provide

members with education in the Japanese language. However, most IAUs do not have to provide

such education because the majority of their members are Japanese.

Thus, IAUs in Japan and worker centers in the United States have several features in common.

However, there is also a clear difference between the two, in terms of the financial base and the

attributes of the officers and staffs.

Financial base of IAUs in Japan

The recent survey shows that 49.7% of IAUs have an annual budget of less than USD 13,000

(JPY 1,000,000; 1 USD=77 JPY), and that 8.7% of them have a budget of at least USD 130,000

(JPY 10,000,000) a year. Union dues form the largest proportion of their revenues, with the

monthly average standing at USD 16.40 (JPY 1,260) per person. The second largest source of

revenue is settlement money, as 61.5% of IAUs receive settlement money as donations from their

members. When negotiations between IAUs and the employers of their members conclude

successfully, or when legal remedies are granted with the help of IAUs, the members’ problems

are often settled by means of monetary payments from their employers. This is called settlement

money, and as a customary practice, members donate some of such money to their IAUs. The

third source of revenue is contributions from other labor unions and those from individuals who

are not union members (Ohara Institute for Social Research [2010]). Non-pecuniary benefits such

as office spaces offered and union officers dispatched from other labor unions are included in the

third source of revenue.

IAUs in Japan earn less revenue than worker centers in the United States, primarily because

there are not so many foundations in Japan, and few IAUs receive contributions or grants from

them, as they do not tend to make such donations to support advocacy organizations such as

IAUs. The amount of aid money that IAUs receive from other labor unions or individuals as

contributions is far smaller than the amount that worker centers receive from incorporated

foundations.

Officers and personnel of IAUs in Japan

According to the same survey, 37.3% of IAUs in Japan have no full-time officers or staffs,

and 57.3% have at least one (this statistic is unknown for the remaining IAUs). However,

experience tells us that the proportion of IAUs that actually have a full-time officer or staff is

smaller than 57.3%. As it is commented as a note in the survey report, the cause of such disparity

between the survey results and the reality is that, due to the vagueness of the definition of the

term “full-time” used in the questions, full-time officers and staffs serving concurrently in a given

IAU and another labor union were not clearly distinguished from those serving exclusively for an

IAU alone (Ohara Institute for Social Research [2010]). It is presumed that in real terms, a

considerable number of officers and staffs serve concurrently in two unions. One of the reasons

why the number of IAUs that have full-time officers or staffs is so small is that IAUs’ revenues

are inadequate to pay them.


Experience also tells us that IAU officers have some characteristic attributes. There are

more men than women among such officers. The largest age group for officers consists of those

in their 50s to 60s, and their numbers grow smaller in the younger age groups, with few of them

being in their 20s. In addition, there are almost no student interns. This may be because students

do not regard IAUs as their future workplaces, and what is more, students are becoming less

interested in social activities, in particular, labor union activities. The attributes of officers and

staffs of worker centers in the United States are substantially different from those of IAU officers

and staffs in Japan.

3 Labor NPOs―The Example of the Working Women's Network (WWN)―

Labor NPOs are non-profit organizations, and they engage in consulting and supporting the

jobless, foreign workers, female workers, agency workers, and so on (here, the term “NPO” is

used regardless of whether a given organization has acquired legal personality). Although there

are many such NPOs nationwide, few studies have discussed them (Koseki [2011]). In plain

terms, the role of labor NPOs in Japan is to protect workers who are not protected by in-house

unions. When female regular workers suffer discriminatory treatment but their in-house unions do

not function to rectify the problem, they have no choice but to go to court. Because of this, there

is a type of women’s labor NPO that aims to support female workers who have brought actions

before the court. This paper takes up the Working Women’s Network (WWN) as an example.

The Working Women’s Network (WWN) is one of the best-known women’s labor NPOs in

Japan. According to the information available on its website, the major objectives of the WWN’s

current activities are to (a) eliminate “indirect discrimination” and to (b) rectify the pay disparities

between men and women and between regular and non-regular employees under the principle of

equal pay for work of equal value.

As its policy, the WWN emphasizes lobbying activities targeting international organizations

such as the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), with the aim of

having these international organizations put pressure on the Japanese government to integrate said

two objectives into Japan’s national policy. The WWN also carries out various other activities,

such as supporting the plaintiffs in legal actions brought to eliminate gender discrimination, and

holding seminars and providing other educational programs. Anyone who approves of the

WWN’s objectives and activities can become a member by paying membership dues

(http://wwn-net.org; as of August 13, 2010).

The WWN was formed in Osaka in 1995. The immediate purpose of its formation was to

support the nine female workers who filed actions in 1995 against their companies for

discrimination against women. The companies that were sued in these actions were three major

companies in the Sumitomo Group, namely, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., Sumitomo

Chemicals Co., Ltd., and Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd., all of which are based in Osaka.

Although the nine plaintiffs were members of the in-house unions of these Sumitomo companies,

the unions refused to support the plaintiffs in their litigation. It can be said that the WWN played

the role of supporting the nine plaintiffs in place of their in-house unions. The story of the birth of


the WWN shows it to have been a typical women’s labor NPO from its beginning.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the features of the WWN and the features of

women’s labor NPOs in Japan, we need to go back in time to the 1970s, to the time before the

WWN.

3-1 1975: International Women’s Year

An historical event, before the formation of the WWN, was the formation of the Kita-ku no

Kai [Group of Kita-ku] for the International Women’s Year (IWY) in Kita-ku (Kita Ward), Osaka

City, in 1975. This group, led by Reiko Shoji, was a study group mainly consisting of women

working in or around Kita-ku.

The Kita-ku no Kai had the following three features (Hiromori [2004, 2005]). (1) From the

beginning, equal treatment in employment between men and women at the workplace was one of

the priority issues of study. (2) Although it is presumed that many of its members were officers of

labor unions or engaged in social movements, the group provided all members with the

opportunity to interact and study together with one another beyond the boundaries of the

organizations to which they belonged. These two features were important because, while the

female union members at that time mainly appealed for maternity protection, the group

functioned as a forum, separately from a labor union, where female workers were able to study

and exchange opinions with one another regarding another issue, gender equality in employment.

There were few of such groups at that time that had both of these important features. (3) Female

lawyers participated in the group, as both law courts and a number of law firms were located in

Kita-ku. Their participation influenced its subsequent development.

Until the first half of the 1970s, female union members, with the seniority system and the

gender role theory as given conditions, had demanded a maternity protection system which would

enable them to continue to work over the long term without suspending their careers to get

married or deliver or raise a child. In other words, gender equality in employment was not an

important demand (Watanabe [1976]). The International Women’s Year of 1975 was regarded as

an important turning point, when the priority demand of leading female union members began to

shift from maternity protection to gender equality in employment, and the Kita-ku no Kai served

as a driving force in this direction.6)

Also in Osaka in 1975, female members of unions of trading companies formed the Society

for the Study of Working Women in Trading Companies.7) Some of the members of this group also

belonged to the Kita-ku no Kai for the International Women’s Year. The members of the Society

for the Study of Working Women in Trading Companies also seem to have shifted weight from the

movement focusing on maternity protection to the movement aiming to rectify pay disparities

between men and women.

In 1981, the Osaka Network for Elimination of Gender Pay Discrimination was formed, led

by Shoji and other female workers of the Kita-ku no Kai for the International Women’s Year and

female lawyers. The Society for the Study of Working Women in Trading Companies joined the

network and formed the Trading Companies’ Group and intensified its activities. In 1984, the


Trading Companies’ Group published a leaflet that presented an analysis of the actual conditions

of pay discrimination against female workers at ten trading companies, and renamed itself the

Association of Women Working for Trading Companies (Moriya [2000]136-150, [2005]43-160).

The leader of this new group was Shizuko Koedo.

In 1985, the members of the Kita-ku no Kai for the International Women’s Year, including

Shoji and Koedo, participated in the Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, and arranged

a workshop. This was the first step of their international activities.

3-2 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA) of 1985―Despair led them to go to court―

The Act on Securing, etc. Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in

Employment (Equal Employment Opportunity Act, EEOA) of 1985 was the most important

legislation enacted for Japan to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of

Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Convention) of 1979. Despite the great expectations

that female labor activists had for this legislation, what was actually enacted was a lukewarm law

that disappointed them.

In 1987, the Association of Women Working for Trading Companies published its second

leaflet, A Letter to CEDAW, which claimed that the EEOA contravened the Convention. CEDAW

stands for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a United Nations

committee for promoting the effective enforcement of the CEDAW Convention in the States

Parties. A Letter to CEDAW was given wide coverage by the media. The Association of Women

Working for Trading Companies created an English translation of the letter, and in 1991, its

members visited CEDAW office and handed it over to the person in charge (Koedo [1998]).

The Society for the Study of Working Women, a research and study organization of women

workers and researchers, held a symposium to discuss equality in employment in Tokyo in 1992.

Horne Kawashima Yoko, a researcher at Stanford University, was invited to speak on the

principle of equal pay for work of equal value developed in the United States. It was the first

introduction of this principle to female labor activists in Japan as an approach to rectify women’s

lower pay (Society for the Study of Working Women [1992]).

The Association of Women Working for Trading Companies participated in this symposium

and was deeply affected by this new principle. However, old leftist labor activities launched a

campaign against the principle, as they were opposed to job analysis and job evaluation and were

in favor of the seniority-based pay system. In order to confirm whether or not the old leftists’

criticism was valid, a team, mainly composed of the members of the Association of Women

Working for Trading Companies, went on a survey tour to the United States and Canada in

August 1994, and published a report of their survey (Japan Pay Equity Society [1996]). After that,

the principle of equal pay for work of equal value became a policy aspired to among a number of

female labor activists.8)

With the enactment of the EEOA providing good momentum, the number of legal actions

filed by female workers demanding the elimination of gender discrimination in employment

started to increase from the second half of the 1980s. For the primary purpose of learning from


the experience gained in these actions, study meetings entitled the Practical Network Seminar on

the Equal Employment Opportunity Act were held in Osaka City on 19 occasions during the

period from 1990 to 1994. These study meetings provided female union members and workers

unaffiliated with a union with the opportunity to interact and study with one another. One of the

major organizers of the meeting was Lawyer Mitsuko Miyachi, who was also a member of the

Kita-ku no Kai for the International Women’s Year and the Osaka Network for Elimination of

Gender Pay Discrimination.

On the occasion of one of the study meetings, a married woman working for a bank talked

about her experience of having successfully demanded the bank for a promotion, alleging the

bank’s discriminatory treatment of married female workers. Encouraged by hearing this

successful precedent, in 1992, married women working for Sumitomo Life Insurance Company

demanded promotions and pay increases, alleging the company’s discriminatory treatment of

married female workers, and applied to the government agency for conciliation, a new type of

dispute resolution proceeding under the EEOA.

This further encouraged women working for Sumitomo Electric, Sumitomo Chemicals, and

Sumitomo Metal to set about activities in 1993 to demand promotions and pay increases from

their companies, claiming that the companies discriminated against female workers. In January

1994, these women flew to New York and observed the CEDAW session, where they were

convinced that their claim was justifiable. On this occasion, they submitted a counter-report to

CEDAW entitled A Letter from Japan, drafted by 13 lawyers and translated into English by the

Kita-ku no Kai for the International Women’s Year. In 1994, they applied to the government

agency for conciliation with regard to their claims against the three Sumitomo companies.

However, the case against Sumitomo Life Insurance and the other cases against the three

Sumitomo companies all ended in vain, with the applications for conciliation dismissed without

prejudice or resulting in irrelevant conciliation proposals being offered. These efforts actually

revealed that the conciliation proceedings under the EEOA were not at all effective. At this stage,

as there was no option for the female workers of the three Sumitomo companies but to resort to

the courts, they made the decision to file lawsuits on August 8, 1995.9)

On August 10, the Working Women’s Network (WWN) was formed as an organization to

support the nine women who were standing as plaintiffs in the Sumitomo cases. The new

organization was born from the predecessor organizations, namely, the Kita-ku no Kai for the

International Women’s Year, the Osaka Network for Elimination of Gender Pay Discrimination,

the Association of Women Working for Trading Companies, and the Practical Network Seminar

on the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (Miyachi [2005], Shoji & Koedo [2005]). Since the

unions to which these women belonged were in-house unions that went along with the

labor-management cooperation policy, they could not expect their support. The WWN took the

place of their unions.

3-3 Support in 2003

The judgment in the first instance for the Sumitomo Electric Case was rendered in 2000, and


that of the Sumitomo Chemicals Case in 2001. Both judgments were against the plaintiffs.

However, in the Sumitomo Electric Case, the high court issued a recommendation for settlement

in favor of the plaintiffs in December 2003.

The successful settlement in the Sumitomo Electric Case is significant, and in a sense, it

determined the direction of the conclusions of the other two Sumitomo cases. In the Sumitomo

Chemicals Case, the high court issued a recommendation for settlement in favor of the plaintiffs

in 2004, and in the Sumitomo Metal Case, the judgment in the first instance was rendered for the

plaintiffs in 2005, and the high court issued a recommendation for settlement in favor of the

plaintiffs in 2006 (http://wwn-net.org; as of August 13, 2010).

In the course of litigation proceedings, the WWN supported the plaintiffs in diverse ways.

Among its support activities, the most characteristic and the most conducive to the successful

settlement in the Sumitomo Electric Case was its lobbying of CEDAW in 2003.

The WWN attended the CEDAW Working Group pre-session held in New York in February

2003, and expressed the following views on the situation in Japan: (1) the employment

management categories and the track-based personnel management system constitute “indirect

discrimination”; (2) the government’s guidelines under the EEOA are inappropriate as they

provide that discrimination should be determined by comparison only within the same

employment management category, whereas discrimination should be determined across different

categories; (3) discrimination should be eliminated without delay. These views were a clear

rebuttal to the reasons given by the court that rendered the judgment against the plaintiffs in the

Sumitomo Electric Case. The WWN also attended the CEDAW session held in New York in July

and stated the same views as those stated in February, while lobbying CEDAW members. These

activities seem to have worked well, and the final comments of the CEDAW issued to the

Japanese government in August included many of the WWN’s views.

In response to the presiding judge’s offer for commencing settlement proceedings, the

plaintiffs submitted a settlement proposal to the court in September. The proposal demanded that

the Japanese Government put into practice the measures mentioned in CEDAW’s final comments.

In December, the presiding judge proposed terms of settlement which, unprecedentedly,

contained a preamble that reflected the plaintiffs’ settlement proposal. The plaintiffs’ promotions

were mentioned in the main body of the terms, despite the fact that the plaintiffs had failed to

demand this in court due to the lack of the relevant personnel materials. The plaintiffs accepted

the settlement proposal and the cases were successfully settled. Upon reaching the settlement with

the plaintiffs, Sumitomo Electric also promoted their female co-workers who had not stood as

plaintiffs in the suit (Miyachi [2005]).

The plaintiffs had been unable to acquire the personnel materials relevant to the demand for

promotions because the three Sumitomo companies would not provide such materials to the

plaintiffs. Further, the in-house unions of these companies also continued to refuse to provide the

personnel materials in their possession, or in other words, support and cooperation, to the

plaintiffs who were their members. These in-house unions further refused to obey the

recommendation issued by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) demanding that the

unions should provide the personnel materials to the plaintiffs (Miyachi [1998]).


Comment should be made here on the three points of the WWN’s activities in 2003.

The first point is that, supposing that the proper path that a labor union should take is to

improve employees’ working conditions through collective bargaining or negotiation with the

management, such proper path turned out to be completely ineffective in improving the working

conditions for the plaintiffs in the aforementioned lawsuits. On the contrary, the in-house unions

of the plaintiffs’ companies became obstacles to them; this is why the plaintiffs resorted to

litigation. Supported by the international lobbying carried out by the WWN, a women’s labor

NPO, the plaintiffs made their lawsuits reflect the outcome of such lobbying, and finally

succeeded in improving their working conditions. What the legal cases discussed above suggest is

that, in the process of eliminating discrimination against female workers, in-house unions may be

not just useless, but also obstructive, whereas women’s labor NPOs may be far more helpful.

Secondly, the approach of improving female workers’ working conditions through litigation,

the WWN’s international lobbying, and introduction of the outcomes of such lobbying, could not

have been attained without the experience of women’s labor NPOs’ activities that had

accumulated since the 1970s. Furthermore, such activities were completely independent from

in-house unions. Despite their independence from in-house unions, or rather, thanks to their

independence from them, women’s labor NPOs have successfully accumulated experience from

their own activities over a long period of time, and have gained this approach.

As the third point, the linkage between the WWN’s international lobbying and the

improvement of female employees’ working conditions that was achieved by introducing the

outcomes of such lobbying is, in fact, not extraordinary in the following two respects, but still, it

was ground-breaking in another respect.

First, it may not be uncommon for a women’s labor NPO or NGO based in a single country to

lobby the United Nations or the ILO and submit a counter-report, or for the United Nations or the

ILO to place as much or more importance on the counter-report of such women’s labor NPO or

NGO than on the official report of the country’s government. The WWN’s success in this can be

regarded as a typical example of this phenomenon. Considering that national governments tend to

be male-dominated, it is understandable for the United Nations or the ILO to turn to an

organization mainly composed of women in order to acquire information that concerns women.

This is in a sense a product of the gender perspective of these international organizations.

Second, it has happened more than once in the modern history of Japan that labor reforms

have made progress due to the external pressure exerted by international labor standards. As is

often pointed out in the study of Japan’s labor history, the Japanese government’s shift in labor

policy toward a tolerant stance on labor unions in the 1920s after becoming a member of the ILO,

and the labor reforms carried out during the occupation immediately after the end of the Second

World War (such as the enactment of the Labor Union Act and Labor Standards Act), can be

noted as precedents of such improvement in the labor environment that were promoted by

external pressure. The 1985 enactment of the EEOA is another of such precedents. This is, as it

were, a product of the relationship between the developed country and the developing country.

However, there was previously no precedent for such external pressure to arise from lobbying

by a Japanese labor NPO or NGO. In this respect, the WWN made a new epoch in Japan’s labor


history of external pressure.

3-4 Present calls for legislative measures

Now that the lawsuits against the three Sumitomo companies have been concluded, the

WWN’s activities currently place emphasis on the attainment of its demand for legislative

measures. First of all, the WWN requests complete enforcement of the ban on “indirect

discrimination” that has been enshrined in law through the revision to the EEOA in 2007, as well

as the introduction of the ban on discrimination under the employment management categories

and the track-based personnel management system. The second demand is the establishment in

law of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. The approach to be taken will be similar

to the precedent, that is, to create external pressure toward ensuring the complete enforcement of

the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as

the ILO Convention concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of

Equal Value (Equal Remuneration Convention 1951) in Japan.

Some successful results have already been made thus far: the EEOA was revised in 2007 to

prohibit “indirect discrimination,” and the Diet passed an additional resolution to review the 2007

revision to the EEOA five years later. Also, in the spring of 2010, the Ministry of Health, Labour

and Welfare prepared and published a manual that recommends the introduction of job analysis

and job evaluation for the purpose of improving the treatment of part-time employees. Job

analysis and job evaluation are the prerequisites for the enforcement of the principle of equal pay

for work of equal value.10)

4 In Closing

In Japan, being excluded from conventional collective bargaining means being excluded from

the conventional type of labor unions, that is, in-house unions. Excluded workers form

organizations of their own, i.e. IAUs and labor NPOs, separately from in-house unions, so as to

protect their rights. They do not limit their method of protection only to collective bargaining.

Workers’ rights being protected by methods other than the conventional collective bargaining

and under the initiative of organizations other than the conventional type of labor unions is a

phenomenon seen not only in the United States but also in some other countries. For example, in

the United Kingdom, a famous charitable organization, Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), provides

labor consultation services, and depending on the case, also provides legal aid for workers

(Abbott [2006]). A study that centered on the CAB has evolved into a study that creates a broader

concept, civil society organizations (CSOs), and focuses on their role (Williams, Abbott and

Heery [2011]). In China, this role is undertaken by labor NPOs, which are not categorized as the

conventional type of labor unions (工会). The representative example is the labor union based in

Beijing, called Little Bird (小小鸟; http://www.xiaoxiaoniao.org.cn/index.htm; as of November

20, 2011). This phenomenon can be described as being universal to some extent.


In order to further the study on this phenomenon, we propose that the following two actions

should be taken in the immediate future: (1) international comparative studies; and (2) a drastic

reform of the theoretical framework for study.

(1) International comparative studies will clarify the points in common and points in difference

in terms of this phenomenon from an international perspective. In fact, the content of our paper

and its presentation are exactly the result of an international comparative study. We visited and

interviewed worker centers and other new types of workers’ organizations in the United States

in 2010 and 2011, as a research project arranged by the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and

Training. On this occasion, we obtained findings on worker centers that we incorporated in this

paper, and compared them with the situation of IAUs in Japan. Also in the course of conducting

interviews, we met Professor Janice Fine in January 2011, and this encounter motivated us to

write and present this paper. We expect to gain further findings from comparisons not only

between two countries (U.S.–Japan) but also among more countries.

(2) Among theoretical frameworks developed in the United States, the one advocated by Dunlop

[1958] is obviously not helpful for studying this phenomenon. On the other hand, we find Piore &

Safford [2006] to be more suggestive, proposing a broader perspective; however, this study does

not advocate a theoretical framework. In the end, an effort should be made to develop a

theoretical framework for study while still moving forward with international comparative

studies. For the development of a theoretical framework, attention should be paid to scholarship

that focuses on the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the United Kingdom (Williams,

Abbott and Heery [2011]).

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Notes

1) The Labor Unions Act of Japan does not apply to public officials or employees of public

enterprises.

2) The three advantages of the Labor Unions Act of Japan are derived from the legislative history.

The Labor Unions Act was first enacted as of December 22, 1945, after the U.S. occupation of

Japan commenced. The U.S. occupation forces gave almost no suggestions on the enactment,

however. It was drafted by a commission set up by the Japanese government. The commission

considered labor unions as workers’ organizations designed to improve working conditions by

means of not only collective bargaining, but also other approaches. This view was incorporated

into the provisions of the Labor Unions Act enacted in 1945. On January 4 or 5, 1949, the U.S.

occupation forces handed the Japanese government a draft that totally revised the 1945 Labor

Unions Act, and demanded that the Act be revised based on this draft. The revision based on this

draft was intended to make the Act more similar to the NLRA of the United States, by introducing

the bargaining unit system. The Japanese government worked on the revision process according

to the U.S. draft and published a new revision draft on February 14. However, on March 28, the

U.S. occupation forces handed a further new draft to the Japanese government and demanded that

this draft be used instead. The second U.S. draft was more similar to the 1945 Labor Unions Act

because almost all of the NLRA-like provisions had been deleted. The U.S. occupation forces had

changed its policy drastically. This final draft was enacted into law on June 1, with few

modifications. The Labor Unions Act currently in effect is almost the same as the one enacted in

1949, which means that the principle of the existing Act is close to that of the 1945 Act.

The U.S. occupation forces likely changed its policy because, while taking into consideration

the Cold War, it was attempting to keep three of the nations in the British Commonwealth (the

United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) on the U.S. side. These three nations were

members of the Far Eastern Commission (FEC) which was the formal supreme decision-making

body for the occupation of Japan, and they were all governed by labor parties. During the period

from the latter half of 1948 to January 1949, the Soviet Union, another member of the FEC, had

been fiercely criticizing the U.S. occupation forces’ civil service policy for its anti-labor nature,


and the opinion of these three nations in the British Commonwealth had been close to that of the

Soviet Union that the U.S. occupation forces’ civil service policy was too heavily based on

American policy. The draft of the Labor Union Act published by the Japanese government on

February 14 reignited the conflict within the FEC in March. Moreover, these three nations in the

British Commonwealth this time criticized more strongly than the previous year that this draft

was too heavily based on American policy. Immediately after this criticism was voiced, the U.S.

occupation forces handed the revised draft to the Japanese government on March 28. This

overview of the developments in the legislative process of the Labor Unions Act of Japan is

discussed by Endo [1989].

3) There is a great distance between in-house unions and their female members. According to the

internal survey conducted by the Gender Equality Bureau of Rengo (kept undisclosed), titled

“Participation of Female Members in Labor Union Activities (2009),” among in-house unions

affiliated with Rengo, female union members account for 26.6%, whereas female union officers

only account for 10.0%. The rate of in-house unions with no female union officers was as high as

49.1% (General Bureau of Gender Equality, Rengo [2010]). Furthermore, focusing on in-house

unions set up in private enterprises, the rates of female union members and of female union

officers are presumed to be far lower than the levels indicated in the survey results, because the

in-house unions targeted in the internal survey include labor unions that organize public officials

and employees of public enterprises (which are similar to in-house unions in private enterprises).

Experience has also shown that the rates of female union members and of female union officers

within in-house unions set up in private enterprises are far lower than those rates within labor

unions consisting of public officials and employees of public enterprises.

4) From the 1960s up until today, it has been frequently seen that a few leftist members or a small

leftist group in an in-house union protest against the union’s cooperative attitude toward the

management. It is often the case that the employer does not treat such leftist members or group

equally to other members, leading them to voice that they were suffering discriminatory treatment

and take legal actions to demand that this be rectified. In most cases, in-house unions do not

support these leftist members at all. Thus, these members are also “excluded” as in-house

members, and in this respect, they are similar to female union members who remain in the

workforce.

5)The organizations defined as IAUs in this paper are referred to as community unions by some.

However, we distinguish these two in this paper for the following reasons. (1) The third type of

union mentioned does not fall within the category of community unions. (2) Some of the first type

of unions mentioned use the term chi-iki (district) union or local union instead of the term

community union in their names.

6) Groups of working women similar to Kita-ku no Kai were formed in 1975, not only within


Osaka City but nationwide, and are at the origins of existing women’s labor NPOs. The

nationwide women’s labor movement in relation to the International Women’s Year 1975 has not

yet been sufficiently studied.

7) This group was formed by female union members who were opposed to the intensified

tendency of the in-house unions of their trading companies toward cooperating with the

management, as a forum for exchanging information on different companies.

8) To date, in two legal cases in which female workers alleged pay discrimination in

employment, a total of three written opinions have been submitted to the courts, showing the

analysis of the state of discrimination under the principle of equal pay for work of equal value,

and these opinions seem to have contributed to judgments and terms of settlement being rendered

in favor of the plaintiffs.

There are various difficulties to overcome before putting the principle of equal pay for work of

equal value into practice in employment conditions in Japan, where regular employees are under

a system which is strongly influenced by seniority-based pay and management, or in other words,

a system which does not have a concept of a job. Pilot studies have been conducted from the

workers’ viewpoints to find out how to overcome these difficulties. The first study targeted

clerical work at trading companies. The second study focused on in-store work in supermarkets

and in care-giving professions (e.g. caregivers and nurses). The third study is currently ongoing,

addressing the work of municipal civil servants. It makes reference to the job evaluation system

which is being implemented based on the agreement between the local government employers and

labor unions in the United Kingdom, according to the principle of equal pay for work of equal

value (http://www.lge.gov.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=119175; as of November 20, 2011). The

main purpose of the third study is to find best approaches for job evaluation, using the

hypothetical job of regular employees. Endo participated in the second study team, and is leading

the third study team.

9) In addition to the lawsuits against the three Sumitomo companies, 12 women working for

Sumitomo Life Insurance filed a lawsuit against their company on December 11, 1995, insisting

that they were discriminated against because they were married women. The judgment in the first

instance was rendered for the plaintiffs in 2001, and the high court issued a recommendation for

settlement in favor of the plaintiffs in 2002. In the Sumitomo Life Insurance Case, Endo prepared

a written opinion as requested by the plaintiffs, and submitted it to the court of the first instance.

10) The approach to job analysis and job evaluation recommended by the ministry’s manual is

defective from the workers’ viewpoint. However, the manual can be appreciated as

groundbreaking because in Japan, job analysis and job evaluation are currently not accepted by

many employers and in-house unions.


Table 1 Number of labor union members and estimated unionization rate in the private sector, by

size of enterprise (2010)

Size of enterprise

(Number

of employees)

Number of union

members

(millions)

Ratio of union

members (%)

Number of

employees

(millions)

Estimated

unionization

rate (%)

Total 8.367 100 49.17 17.0

1000 or more 5.164 61.7 11.08 46.6

300–999 1.235 14.8 13.46 14.2

100–299 0.676 8.1

30–99 0.226 2.7 24.25 1.1

29 or less 0.035 0.4

Others 1.031 12.3 －－

Notes (attached to the original table)

(1) “Others” include members of labor unions consisting of workers from multiple enterprises and

members of labor unions for which the size of enterprise is unknown.

(2) The number of employees represents the number of employees in private enterprises

(excluding agriculture and forestry) according to the Labor Force Survey; the total includes the

number of employees working at enterprises whose size is unknown.

Notes (given by the authors)

(1) In addition to the union members indicated in the table, about 1.6 million union members

work as public officials or for public enterprises; the aggregate total of union members in Japan is

about 10 million and the estimated unionization rate in the aggregate is 18.5%.

(2) Most labor unions consisting of public officials or employees of public enterprises are similar

to in-house unions in the private sector in terms of their organizational structures.

(3) “Others” (1.031 million union members) include, for example, the more than 600,000

members of Zenkensoren, members of individual affiliate unions (IAUs), members of All Japan

Seamen's Union, which is an industrial union, and members of the Japan Professional Baseball

Players Association, which is an occupational union.

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare [2010]

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