No. 1348 Spring Labor Offensive 2024 - Big Businesses Have Profits
The annual labor-management negotiation talks on the big-company level have ended, recording the ‘historic high rate of wage hike’, a 100% acceptance of the labor’s requests by employers. The management’s replies were announced consecutively on March 13 and 14. The spring-season labor struggle is now shifting to small-and-medium-sized companies where 70% of all the working population have their jobs. At most eighty percent-strong of such companies are planned to increase wages. The impact of workers’ accomplishment in the big business sphere may not well reflect on the workers of smaller companies.
IMPACT OF WORKERS’ STRUGGLE OF BIG BUSINESS MUST REFLECT ON WORKERS IN SMALLER BUSINESS
A 100% approval by management of labor’s requests
Many of big companies delivered on March 13 and 14 a full approval to the labor’s demands successively. The Rengo, or the Japan Trade Union Confederation, announced March 15 on the first-round results of labor-management negotiation: it said that the average wage hike rate was 5.28%, which accounts \16,469 a month (as of the same period of 2023 the figure was \4,625).
The Rengo’s president Yoshino Tomoko boasted of the result, saying that it was the highest rate after 33-year absence since the year 1991.
Have the workers really attained the goal through their own struggles?
Many big businesses, enjoying the cheap Yen appreciation against dollars, have increased the sales, piling up their internal reserves; in the fiscal 2022 they totaled 554 trillion yen (by 7.4% growing in comparison with the previous year’s outcome), the highest in the history. The management of big corporations may have accepted the labor’s demand courteously as a temporary step. The labor side must not be satisfied with the employers’ tentative posing.
Gaps expand among workers
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio had a meeting in his official residence on March 13, when many big companies presented the consequences, in which top leaders of three sectors, namely, business, labor and politics, sat together at the table to exchange opinions. The premier mentioned that ‘he felt confident in the trend of wage hikes, which was solider than that of last year’, adding that ‘it was important to increase wages in the broader domains of working population’. Premier Kishida performed as if he had been very keen to the achievements of workers of big corporations that would be impacted on salaries of workers of the smaller business entities.
According to surveys conducted by major newspaper companies, however, more than a half of smaller business bodies answered that they were not planned to increase wages, explaining that ‘it is impossible to put the higher costs on the prices of merchandize that come from the surged pays’.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has pointed out wage gaps among workers; if the salary of a worker in a big business is set as 100 points, then that of medium-sized entities is 85.7 and that of a small company records 79.7 points. These figures say that during a span of 23 years the gaps expanded by three times. Working people are clearly divided.
President Yoshino told after the top leaders’ meeting that: she had reiterated that the year 2024 would be a successful year for economic growth and employers rightly understood the fact. Thus, the labor could enjoy the outcomes.
She emphasized the Rengo’s role, but it is irrelevant.
A tiny share
Global enterprises like Nippon Steel Corporation and Suzuki Motor Corporation, the employers pledged to increase salaries of their employees more than they had demanded in the 2024 negotiation. It is said that the management finds it hard to secure human resources for their business and it has adjusted discrepancies in salaries between organized workers in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean on one hand, who have staged strikes demanding higher pay, and those in Japan on the other.
If it is so, the employers’ response means to fill the gaps with a kind of leftovers of the achievements of labor unions in Europe and the US, though here in Japan wage hike struggles were not successful.
Campaigns of the labor offensive 2024 now shifts to struggles of workers in the smaller business entities which embrace almost 70% of all the working population. Prevail higher prices. Forty percent of all the working population are employed on the basis of irregular working conditions. It is high time to struggle to gain right wages by which all workers could enjoy incomes that exceed the price hikes.
24春闘山場・集中回答日で大手企業労使は「歴史的高水準の賃上げ率」で決着した。続く全労働者の７割が働く中小春闘を迎えるが、賃上げ予定企業は８割強程度に止まる。波及は不透明だ。
満額回答に沸くが
24年春闘の大手集中回答日が３月13、14日に集中し、「満額回答」が並んだ。15日には連合が第一回集約を発表したが、賃上げ率は平均５・28％（月額１万６４６９円、昨年同時点は４６２５円）であった。
「１ ９ ９ １ 年以来、33年ぶりの高水準」と連合の芳野友子会長は胸を張ったが、勝ち取ったと言えるのか。円安による好決算の企業が増え、22年度の内部留保は５５４兆円(前年比７・４％増)と過去最高を記録。大企業の一時的なご祝儀回答に終わらせてはならない。
中小との格差拡大
岸田文雄首相は、日の集中回答日に合わせ経済界のトップと労働界のトップと意見交換する「政労使会議」を首相官邸で開いた。首相は「昨年を上回る力強い賃上げの流れを心強く思う」と述べ、「裾野の広い賃上げの実現が大切だ」と中小への波及に目配りする姿をアピールして見せた。
しかし、マスコミの調査では賃上げをしない企業の半数以上が、「賃上げによるコスト上昇分を価格転嫁できない」と回答した。
また厚労省によると、企業規模別の賃金格差は大企業を１００とすると、中企業は85・７、小企業は79・７。23年間で格差の幅は３倍に広がり、働く者の分断が広がっている。
政労使会談後、芳野連合会長は「今年が経済拡幅の正念場だと申し上げてきたが、そのことを使用者にもご理解いただいて、こうした結果になったのではないか」と果たした役割を自賛したが、的外れだ。
〝オコボレ〟でしか
今春闘で日鉄、スズキなど日本を代表するグローバル企業は要求以上の賃上げを回答した。これはこの間、欧米の産別労組がストライキで勝ち取ってきた賃金水準と日本企業との賃金格差が大きく開き、人材確保が難しくなった結果の調整といわれる。
そうであるなら、高額回答は日本が賃上げできなかった分、欧米労組の成果の〝オコボレ〟でしかないことになるのではないか。
24春闘は、全労働者の７割を占める中小に移る。物価高が続いている。全労働者の４割を占める非正規も含め、今こそ全ての労働者が物価上昇を上回る賃上げを獲得しよう。
英訳版↓
No. 1348 Spring Labor Offensive 2024 - Big Businesses Have Profits
The annual labor-management negotiation talks on the big-company level have ended, recording the ‘historic high rate of wage hike’, a 100% acceptance of the labor’s requests by employers. The management’s replies were announced consecutively on March 13 and 14. The spring-season labor struggle is now shifting to small-and-medium-sized companies where 70% of all the working population have their jobs. At most eighty percent-strong of such companies are planned to increase wages. The impact of workers’ accomplishment in the big business sphere may not well reflect on the workers of smaller companies.
IMPACT OF WORKERS’ STRUGGLE OF BIG BUSINESS MUST REFLECT ON WORKERS IN SMALLER BUSINESS
A 100% approval by management of labor’s requests
Many of big companies delivered on March 13 and 14 a full approval to the labor’s demands successively. The Rengo, or the Japan Trade Union Confederation, announced March 15 on the first-round results of labor-management negotiation: it said that the average wage hike rate was 5.28%, which accounts \16,469 a month (as of the same period of 2023 the figure was \4,625).
The Rengo’s president Yoshino Tomoko boasted of the result, saying that it was the highest rate after 33-year absence since the year 1991.
Have the workers really attained the goal through their own struggles?
Many big businesses, enjoying the cheap Yen appreciation against dollars, have increased the sales, piling up their internal reserves; in the fiscal 2022 they totaled 554 trillion yen (by 7.4% growing in comparison with the previous year’s outcome), the highest in the history. The management of big corporations may have accepted the labor’s demand courteously as a temporary step. The labor side must not be satisfied with the employers’ tentative posing.
Gaps expand among workers
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio had a meeting in his official residence on March 13, when many big companies presented the consequences, in which top leaders of three sectors, namely, business, labor and politics, sat together at the table to exchange opinions. The premier mentioned that ‘he felt confident in the trend of wage hikes, which was solider than that of last year’, adding that ‘it was important to increase wages in the broader domains of working population’. Premier Kishida performed as if he had been very keen to the achievements of workers of big corporations that would be impacted on salaries of workers of the smaller business entities.
According to surveys conducted by major newspaper companies, however, more than a half of smaller business bodies answered that they were not planned to increase wages, explaining that ‘it is impossible to put the higher costs on the prices of merchandize that come from the surged pays’.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has pointed out wage gaps among workers; if the salary of a worker in a big business is set as 100 points, then that of medium-sized entities is 85.7 and that of a small company records 79.7 points. These figures say that during a span of 23 years the gaps expanded by three times. Working people are clearly divided.
President Yoshino told after the top leaders’ meeting that: she had reiterated that the year 2024 would be a successful year for economic growth and employers rightly understood the fact. Thus, the labor could enjoy the outcomes.
She emphasized the Rengo’s role, but it is irrelevant.
A tiny share
Global enterprises like Nippon Steel Corporation and Suzuki Motor Corporation, the employers pledged to increase salaries of their employees more than they had demanded in the 2024 negotiation. It is said that the management finds it hard to secure human resources for their business and it has adjusted discrepancies in salaries between organized workers in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean on one hand, who have staged strikes demanding higher pay, and those in Japan on the other.
If it is so, the employers’ response means to fill the gaps with a kind of leftovers of the achievements of labor unions in Europe and the US, though here in Japan wage hike struggles were not successful.
Campaigns of the labor offensive 2024 now shifts to struggles of workers in the smaller business entities which embrace almost 70% of all the working population. Prevail higher prices. Forty percent of all the working population are employed on the basis of irregular working conditions. It is high time to struggle to gain right wages by which all workers could enjoy incomes that exceed the price hikes.
March 27, 2024