Abstract
Japan’s unionisation rates and share of regular employees in the workforce have been in continuous decline since the 1970s. We use an insider–outsider model adjusted to Japanese employment institutions to link subjective short-term choice sets of unions with long-term institutional change. Non-regular work sets the entry conditions into the labour market, and by representing regular workers exclusively, unions protect wages and security for their members during economic downturns, without increasing involuntary unemployment at the national level. This strategy is linked to the observed expansion and diversification of non-regular work in Japan, particularly in involuntary non-regular employees who were originally seeking regular work. A rise in the non-regular worker base further reduces unionisation rates and union bargaining power, suggesting that the long-term exclusion of non-regular workers is unsustainable. We present a case study of UA Zensen, the major union federation leading non-regular worker unionisation at national level, to examine how union federations can overcome enterprise level barriers to expansion. Despite UA Zensen’s success, significant challenges to inclusive unionisation still exist, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Despite changes in union federations’ official stance in the late 1990s, the data show that non-regular workers continue to be excluded at enterprise level.
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Notes
Dual labour market, collaborative labour-management relations and exclusive union membership.
UA Zensen, previously known as UI Zensen, is the largest industrial union in Japan, with 2448 affiliated unions and 1.64 million members in 2016. During the past decade, it has led the movement for unionisation of non-regular workers in Japan.
While the efficiency wage framework is more commonly used when analysing Japan’s employment system, the insider–outsider model is better suited to institutional analysis. Efficiency wage theory is employer-focused, and we analyse the behaviour and incentives of labour organisations, particularly labour unions. Secondly, efficiency wage theory does not offer a satisfactory explanation for why unions would choose to exclude non-regular workers even when faced with demographic and structural changes in the composition of the workforce.
This is also the market clearing equilibrium wage.
Where 0 < xE < 1.
Empirically, nominal wages could be discounted using an index estimating the security of different employment types in a given country.
While an increasing number of unions now allows non-regular workers to join, the data in the next section confirms this is a very close approximation of the labour movement in Japan.
The largest national trade union federation in Japan, representing all major industrial unions and union federations with a joint membership of 6.82 million workers in 2016.
Employers can only ask for overtime or ask workers to work during holidays if they enter a “union shop agreement” with their enterprise union, which must represent over 50% of the workforce. This means unions who represent 50% or more of the workforce have significantly more bargaining power than those who do not.
Expansion of employment, cooperation between labour and management and fair distribution of the fruits of productivity. While the first and third principles are not being followed to the same extent at the 1960s, cooperation between labour and management continues to characterise Japanese industrial relations today.
Central executive standing committee member for UA Zensen.
Respectively aligned with the communist and socialist parties, advocating a class-based approach.
Centrist, Rengo-affiliated, based on collaborative labour-management relations.
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Rosetti, N. Labour union strategy and non-regular worker unionisation: an institutionally adjusted insider–outsider model for Japan. Evolut Inst Econ Rev 15, 113–137 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-018-0091-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-018-0091-z