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�T.Right to Organize and Right to Collective Bargaining of Employees of Independent Administrative Institutions (IAIs)

(1) In its 331st Report, the Committee on Freedom of Association asked the Government of Japan to inform the Committee of any effects of the administrative reorganization on the right to collective bargaining of public personnel (331st Report, paragraph 552).

ZENROREN wishes to present its view regarding this particular point.

First, the Government of Japan in its communication of March 31, 2003 containing “additional information” (4. on the matters of which it was requested to inform by the Committee in its previous interim report) merely limited itself to explain legal measures taken and failed to refer to the problems the on-going administrative reform has entailed.

a)Historically, the registration of employees’ organizations (unions) was introduced in 1948 at the revision of the National Public Service Law. It requires in particular that any employees’ organization (union) to be registered should be made up of employees belonging to a same state organization. As a result of this specific requirement, a great majority of state employees’ organizations were organized in each ministry or governmental agency, so that they have carried on their activities for more than half a century.

In most cases, each of these organizations represents the employees belonging to a single ministry or governmental agency, regardless of occupational categories. Employees of institutions or agencies that are attached to a ministry such as research institutes are generally represented by the branches setup by the employees’ organization of that ministry.

b)Under the current national service system, the working conditions are determined in detail by laws and ordinances, as well as by the rules and regulations of the National Personnel Authority. The head of each institution or agency attached to a ministry has therefore been given a very limited power in intervening into the determination of working conditions. As a result, the matters on which union branches can negotiate at each institution level are very restricted: the participation of union branches in the determination of working conditions has not sufficiently been guaranteed and developed.

The transformation of ministerial institutions or agencies into “independent administrative institutions (IAIs),” therefore, has made inevitable the separation of branches from the employees’ organizations they belong to form separate unions and thus has suddenly thrown these branches that have little experience in participating in the determination of working conditions into a world of harsh industrial confrontation.

c)For example, the Education Ministry Employees’ Union until March 31st, 2001 formed a single employees’ organization representing not only employees working in the ministry but also researchers and clerical employees working in national research institutes and museums attached to the ministry. The employees of these research institutes and museums were organized in the branches of the Education Ministry Employees’ Union.

On April 1st, 2001, the research centers and museums were separated from the ministry and became “independent administrative institutions”. The Education Ministry Employees’ Union (350 members) was subsequently forced to divide itself into seven unions: one made up of employees working in the ministry departments and six others in different IAIs. The largest of these seven unions has a membership of 122 people and the smallest only 23!

d)A more typical example may be the case of the independent administrative institution for car inspection established on July 1st, 2002. The car inspection IAI was created following the separation of clerical section of car inspection department from the overland transport division of the Ministry of Land and Transport that deals with the registration and safety inspection of cars. As a result of this separation, in some local overland transport offices, some employees are Land and Transport Ministry employees while others are IAI employees and they work together in the same work places. The union however was forced to reorganize itself: the IAI employees had to set up separately their union that has only few members at each local office level.

e)ZENROREN does not accept the argument set forth by the Government, in particular its claim that it is natural to separate and divide employees into different employees’ organizations or workers’ unions according to the different systems for determining working conditions. The sudden separation of IAI employees from the ministerial employees’ organizations is based on the premise that the employees’ organization registration system should be maintained. The reorganization of administrative structures now underway in Japan is accompanied with privatization and contracting-out to private sector of clerical services and has been implemented without putting into question the existence of more than one type of employment in a single establishment.

So long as the registration system exists, requiring that any employees’ organization should be comprised only of employees belonging to a same state organization, privatization and contracting-out to private sector of state services will cause continued decreases in the number of employees to be organized by the employees’ organizations. In addition to this, the conversion of certain state institutions into “independent administrative institutions” will lead to the creation of many small and segmented unions that have no experiences and skills accumulated in collective bargaining. These will weaken the power of union struggle and affect the unity of workers on the long run.

f)The right to organize is guaranteed to any worker, whether he/ she is employed by a ministry or by an independent administrative institution or by a specified independent administrative institution. However, the employees of ministerial institutions or agencies that have become independent administrative institutions or specified independent administrative institutions can hardly choose to remain members of the employees’ organizations they used to belong to. As was already explained in the previous communication of ZENROREN dated March 18th, 2003, the employees’ organizations would then no longer qualify for the registration and lose the advantages they have been accorded to such as authorization of having some of its members working full-time as union officers.

The registration of employees’ organizations as a system has the effect of forcing the separation of some members of the same employees’ organization from others and restricting the freedom of workers to join the organization of their own choosing. This is why ZENROREN has repeatedly indicated this system as constituting one of the major problems in the current public service system.

(2) Second, the right to collective bargaining is restricted through the actual practices in the management of the independent administrative institutions.

a)The head of each IAI is appointed by the Minister in charge, who also gives him/her the institution’s mid-term objectives to be attained. The mid-term plans for achieving these objectives must also be approved by the Minister in charge. The degree of achievement of mid-term objectives is evaluated at the end of mid-term plans and, if evaluated unsatisfactory, the IAI may in certain cases be recommended to dissolve itself.

The Minister in charge every fiscal year demands the government to provide as grant the funds necessary for managing the IAIs (operating expenses) that is then assessed by the Minister of Finance. The IAI personnel cost is included in this grant.

It is true that the right to conclude labor agreements on wages and other working conditions is recognized for the employees of independent administrative institutions, but the exercise of this right is subject to the various restrictions mentioned earlier. This is also true for the specified independent administrative institutions basically.

b)Since April 2001, pay schemes have been revised twice in all the independent administrative institutions. Each year, in all IAIs, substantial wage negotiations were held only after the government had decided the revision of wages (the pay law is amended on the basis of the recommendations of the National Personnel Authority) for white-collar state employees. For two years in a row, the changes made in the pay schemes by the IAIs were almost identical to those recommended by the NPA.

c)In particular, in the 2002 pay review, the NPA recommended a reduction in the basic salary and the reduction to be retroactively implemented from April of the same year. All IAIs without exception followed the NPA recommendations by cutting both basic salary and different allowances retroactively from April 2002 and, at the same time, revised their internal regulations. Some unions applied for the mediation by the Central Labor Relations Committee, but the claim of those unions that opposed the retroactive implementation was turned down by the CLRC.

d)Hours of work and paid leaves of employees of different IAIs are also similar to those of white-collar state employees. These are attributable to the short time elapsed since the change in the status of these employees as well as to the fact that their unions are not sufficiently experienced in industrial negotiations. Nevertheless, we believe that they are essentially due to the strong intervention of the Minister in charge in the management of IAIs. As a matter of fact, the intervention of the Minister in charge into the management of independent administrative institutions often prevents the employees from fully exercising the right to collective bargaining guaranteed to them by law.

e)This is related to the fact indicated by ZENROREN that the transformation of some governmental institutions into IAIs forces the employees’ organizations to separate segments of their members into small different unions, formed at each independent administrative institution level and will eventually weaken the struggle and negotiating power of employees’ organizations and unions.

�U.On the Consultation Process

In its 331st Report, the Committee on Freedom of Association requested the Government of Japan to provide information on the progress of negotiations and consultations between the government and employees’ organizations (331st Report, paragraph 557).

Despite the recommendations issued by the Committee on Freedom of Association on two occasions, no “comprehensive, open and meaningful consultations” have been held between the Government and ZENROREN (including its affiliates).

In our view, the reasons for this are the following, as already indicated on many occasions by ZENROREN since it submitted the complaints to the ILO.

a)The first reason is that the Japanese Government clings to the General Principles of Civil Service Reform based on the maintenance of “the restrictions on the fundamental labor rights” and stubbornly refuses to make any change in its General Principles.

In addition, the Government has failed to consider seriously the ILO recommendations urging the consultations between the Government and unions concerned, claiming that the ILO “recommendations” is merely an “interim report”.

b)The second reason is that the Government proceeds with the current civil service reform with an aim to introduce a competence grade system as the core of reform from the position that it does not constitute a working condition.

The Government’s refusal to consult or negotiate with the unions on a matter that is central to the reform, namely the competence grade System, is blocking the progress of consultations and negotiations on the whole contents of the reform.

It must also be noted that there is an apparent divergence of view between the Cabinet Secretariat in charge of the practical work for the reform and the NPA, the current administrative body for the state personnel management over whether the competence grade system constitutes a working condition or not.

c)The third reason lies in the persistent attitude of the Government that consists of merely hearing the concerned parties without any intention to take their opinions into consideration.

The Government in early July began unofficial consultations with ministries and governmental agencies on the premise that the bills related to the Civil Service Reform (4 bills including the bill for the revision of the National Public Service Law and the bill on competence grade system) would be approved by a Cabinet meeting. However, these unofficial consultations did not deserve their name: they were held as a mere formality necessary for adoption of the bills. Moreover, the Government has failed to officially present the contents of the bills to ZENROREN.

Due to a number of events that have occurred since, the Government has temporarily suspended the adoption of the bills by the Cabinet meeting, but the commitment of the Government to “have dialogue with unions in good faith” has never been fulfilled till today.

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