From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Economic Crisis Hits Japan's Workers
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 08:06:35 GMT

Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


ECONOMIC CRISIS HITS JAPAN'S WORKERS

By Sue Bailey

(First of two articles on the Japanese economy and
the labor movement)

In the U.S., the relationship between workers and bosses in Japan
is touted as a model other industrialized countries should
emulate. Labor-management committees and a lifetime employment
guarantee, which have supposedly removed the adversarial
relationship between workers and bosses, are seen as key to
Japan's success. But the supposedly recession-proof Japanese
economy is suffering its third straight year of decline. Profits
are expected to drop more than 20 percent by the end of 1992,
according to the Dec. 7 Wall Street Journal.

The myth is being shattered.

With the second-biggest economy in the world, Japan is not immune
from the global economic crisis currently affecting all the
imperialist powers. The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 8 that
the Japanese bourgeoisie fears the recession there is "not just a
cyclical downturn but possibly the start of an extended period of
slow growth."

And there is a banking crisis. The Japanese banking system, with
up to $500 billion of problem debts, faces a crisis as large as
the U.S. savings & loan debacle, according to the Nov. 11 New
York Times. Japan's Ministry of Finance estimates the total value
of non-performing loans--on which not even interest has been paid
for six months or more--at close to $100 billion. Most private
analysts put the true figure at more than $240 billion.

Bailing out the financial institutions could be such a
substantial expense that it could cut the competitiveness of
Japanese lenders for the remainder of this decade, according to
an analysis in the nov. 26 issue of Far Eastern Economic Review.

Risutora--restructuring--is now on the agenda at many
corporations. And with restructuring comes attacks on workers.

The so-called lifetime employment guarantee--which doesn't even
apply to two-thirds of the work force--has been thrown out the
window. Many major corporations have announced layoffs.

So have their subsidiaries. So have smaller companies. And so has
the public sector.

Oki Electric Industry plans 30,000 layoffs over the next two
years. Victor Company of Japan, a large audio-visual firm, has
slated 3,000 for layoffs. Matsushita Electric Industrial Company
will dump 1,500 workers.

Even giants like Nissan and Nippon Steel Corporation will lay off
thousands over the next couple of years. The expected shake-out
and consolidation of some Japanese industries will bring yet more
job losses.

WOMEN WORKERS UNDER THE GUN

Women workers face the greatest hardships.

From 1975 to 1992, the number of women workers rose from 11.5
million to 20 million. Women now make up 40 percent of the work
force. Although an equal opportunity law was passed in 1985, many
women complain that in the deepening recession the law is
forgotten.

Attorney Michiko Nakajima told the New York Times, "The only way
to make the equal opportunity law work is to give it power to
punish companies." (Dec. 1)

Instead, corporations don't hire women for career-track
positions, and they force them to retire early. The male-female
wage differential is getting bigger: Women's pay is on average 60
percent of men's.

If layoffs are based on seniority, women are the first to go.

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) has
established a women's organization to fight for true equality,
higher wages and fewer work hours for everyone. It's not unusual
to work 100 hours overtime each month.

Zenroren was formed in November 1989 as an alternative to the
"enterprise" or company unions established to bring industrial
peace after the militant labor offensives of the 1940s, 1950s and
1960s.

Next: Behind the current attacks on Japanese workers


(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)


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