Union membership is all-time low in Japan

Only 20.2 percent of Japan's workers are union members, which is the all-time low since the first survey conducted in 1947.

According to the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Labor's survey of the nation's trade unions published on December 19, the number of union members was 18.01 million (including 293,000 part-time workers) as of the end of June 2002, down 596,000 from the previous year.

The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), which organizes many unions of large corporations, suffered a loss of 160,000 members during the year and has now 6.95 million members.

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) has increased its membership by 6,000 to 1.02 million.

Only 2.7 percent of the more than 10-million part-time workers are organized.

Zenroren Secretary General Bannai Mitsuo in a published statement pointed out that the fall in the decline in the rate of organized workers is mainly due to a sharp increase in unemployment caused by corporate restructuring and manufacturing plants moving out of the country.

Also, he said, the prolonged economic recession and the Koizumi Cabinet's policy of accelerating the write-off of banks' bad loans are pushing more companies out of business, resulting in more union losses.

Bannai stated that the ministry survey does not correctly reflect the Zenroren membership, which actually stands at 1.36 million. Zenroren has increased its membership through the vigorous struggles by Zenroren-affiliated union branches against corporate restructuring and personnel cuts, he said.

Rengo Secretary General Kusano Tadayoshi in his statement said that Rengo has lost members due to personnel cuts under corporate restructuring and the lack of efforts to organize part-time and other non-regular workers. (end)