 Union membership in Japan continues to decline Union membership in Japan has continued to decline for a decade and now stands at 10,309,000, down 222,000 from last year. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on December 14 published its yearly survey of the state of the nation's trade unions as of June 30, 2004. The percentage of unionized workers fell 0.4 percent to 19.2 percent. The number of unions also decreased by 1,150 to 62,105. According to the survey, the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) has a membership of 978,000. But this figure does not include most of those who are members (about 319,000) of local unions affiliated with Zenroren. Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) membership accounts for 65.2 percent of all Japanese unionized workers. In a published comment on the survey, Zenroen Secretary General Ban'nai Mitsuo stated, "Membership declines are caused mainly by corporate 'restructuring' and reluctance to hire new workers as well as an increase in the use of part-time and other contingent workers replacing full-time workers. Even in the public sector, where the percentage of unionized workers is higher than in the private sector, it is increasingly difficult for the unions to cope with personnel cuts and the outsourcing of work. In order to reverse this declining tendency and increase union membership, we must establish more unions for individual workers in conformity with the changing industrial structure and the increasing mobility of the labor force and strengthen the existing unions to become effective in order to realize workers' needs. The biggest task now is for Zenroren to organize the increasing workers with unstable jobs. " (end) |