The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations Reform without Labor

by Imai, Jun

• ISBN13: 9780230209084
• ISBN10: 0230209084
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book systematically evaluates the impacts of deregulatory reforms on employment relations in Japan especially focusing on the core white collar workers. Concentrating on changes in three aspects of employment relations; contracts, employee mobility and worker effort, it examines the process of social negotiation and its results.

Author Biography

Jun Imai is Assistant Professor in the Center for the Study of Social Stratification and Inequality (CSSI) at Tohoku University in Japan. Before joining Tohoku, he was a post-doctoral research associate in the Institute of East Asian Studies and Sociology at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. viii
List of Figures	p. x
List of Abbreviations	p. xii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Sociological Theory of Employment Relations	p. 1
Did Japanese employment relations change?	p. 1
Employment relations in sociological perspective	p. 3
Contract/effort	p. 4
Mobility	p. 6
State-firm-labor negotiations at societal, organizational and workplace levels	p. 8
Societal construction of labor markets	p. 9
Welfare-employment policies	p. 10
Labor management practices and authority relations	p. 11
Research strategy and the structure of the book	p. 12
Employment Relations in Postwar Japan	p. 17
Introduction	p. 17
A brief history of employment relations in Japan	p. 17
The postwar labor struggle and its consequences	p. 17
The end of the rapid economic growth and belt-tightening management	p. 22
The characteristics of postwar Japanese employment relations	p. 27
Contract/effort	p. 27
Mobility	p. 35
Summary	p. 40
Regulations of employment relations: with or without labor	p. 42
'Corporatism with labor' at work	p. 42
'Reform without labor'?	p. 43
Political Segmentation of the Labor Market: The Establishment and Expansion of New Employment Forms	p. 50
The employers' initiative for labor market reform	p. 50
Social organization of labor markets in the postwar period	p. 53
The comparative strength of 'flexible rigidities'	p. 53
Initial expansion of the external labor market	p. 57
Deregulation of the labor markets	p. 59
Policy shift	p. 59
Descriptive characteristics of the labor market changes	p. 64
Inequalities between regular and non-regular contracts	p. 77
A high wall between contracts	p. 82
Reconfiguration of employment contracts and job mobility	p. 89
The DWS: Deregulation of Working Time and Its Impact on the Effort-Bargain	p. 92
Working time regulation and employment relations	p. 92
LSA regulation and the company citizenship	p. 93
Working time reduction and renewed interest in the DWS	p. 98
Working time reduction for better quality of life	p. 98
Shifted aim of the reform of working time regulation	p. 104
The political dynamics of the working time deregulation	p. 111
Marginalization of labor in the politics of deregulation	p. 111
Decentralization of working time regulations	p. 116
The DWS: a legal base for the renegotiation of effort-bargain	p. 119
Re-bargaining Effort: The Introduction of Results-Orientation at COMPUJ	p. 122
Labor management reform and white-collar effort	p. 122
The movement of labor management reform: the case of COMPUJ	p. 123
Employers' movement to introduce results-oriented labor management	p. 123
COMPUJ in context	p. 125
Initiating the results-oriented labor management	p. 130
Management by objectives	p. 130
Old practice of rotation, old attitude of adaptation	p. 134
Conflict	p. 138
Rising concerns over the new system	p. 140
Intensification of results-orientation	p. 142
Deliberation of the MBO and the diversification of career track	p. 142
Formalization of evaluation criteria: 'competency' management	p. 146
Self-management under control: job announcement and the DWS	p. 152
Marketization, formalization and individualization of labor management	p. 156
Consequences of the changes within COMPUJ	p. 158
Conclusion: Changes and Future Directions of Japanese Employment Relations	p. 161
Changing employment relations	p. 161
Contract/effort	p. 162
Mobility	p. 166
The declining presence of labor unions	p. 167
Remaking employment relations: risks and opportunities for Japanese workers	p. 170
'Deflation of employment' in Japan	p. 170
Right to a career without organizational membership	p. 173
Appendices
List of interviewees	p. 176
Major reforms of labor market regulations in the post-WWII period	p. 178
Revisions of the limited-term contract	p. 180
Labor market changes	p. 183
Chronology of working time regulations	p. 186
Discretionary work regulations as of 2000	p. 188
Future principles of labor management	p. 190
The COMPUJ organizational chart as of July, 1994	p. 191
Notes	p. 192
References	p. 210
Glossary	p. 223
Index	p. 225
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