Japan
The ITUC affiliate in Japan is the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-Rengo).
Japan ratified Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association
freedom of association
The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) in 1965 and Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining
collective bargaining
The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.
See collective bargaining agreement
(1949) in 1953.
Legal
Freedom of association / Right to organise
Freedom of association
The right to freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution.
Anti-Union discrimination
The law prohibits anti-union discrimination, but does not provide adequate means of protection against it.
Categories of workers prohibited or limited from forming or joining a union, or from holding a union office
- Other civil servants and public employees
- The law places limitations on the right of public sector workers and employees of state-owned enterprises to form and join unions of their choice. Firefighters cannot form or join trade union organisations. With regard to prison officers, the Government of Japan considers that they are included in the category of police by the nature of their duties and they are therefore denied the right to organise.
Right to collective bargaining
Right to collective bargaining
The right to collective bargaining is enshrined in the Constitution.
Limitations or ban on collective bargaining in certain sectors
- Other civil servants and public employees
- Administrative and clerical workers do not have the right to bargain or conclude collective agreements at the local or national level. Their wages are set by law and/or regulations, partly based on recommendations issued by the National Personnel Authority and local personnel commissions. Employees in firefighting services, prison institutions and the Maritime Safety Agency do not have the right to bargain collectively. Employees involved in providing essential services ( i.e. electric power generation and transmission, transportation and railways, telecommunications, medical care and public health, and the postal service) do not have the right to collective bargaining.
Right to strike
Right to strike
The right to strike is enshrined in the Constitution.
Undermining of the recourse to strike actions or their effectiveness
- Excessive civil or penal sanctions for workers and unions involved in non-authorised strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike actions - Trade union leaders who incite strike action in the public sector can be dismissed and fined or imprisoned for up to three years under provisions of the National Public Service Employee Law and the Local Public Service Employee Law.
Limitations or ban on strikes in certain sectors
- Undue restrictions for “public servants”
- Public sector employees do not have the right to strike (National Public Service Act).
- Discretionary determination or excessively long list of “essential services
essential services
Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
” in which the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike is prohibited or severely restricted - Workers in sectors providing essential services, including electric power generation and transmission, transportation and railways, telecommunications, medical care and public health, and the postal service must give ten days' advance notice to authorities before organising a strike.
In practice
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO) reports having witnessed many cases of discrimination against union members or activists. Companies are frequently refusing to bargain in good faith. In several cases management delayed negotiations with a view to block the bargaining process. Financial information about the companies that is essential for the bargaining process is only delivered after unions exert pressure. Concluded collective agreements are rarely extended and only apply to union members. Moreover, strikes in the public sector are forbidden, and incitation to strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
by public employees is illegal and punished with up to three years imprisonment. The Japan Confederation of Railway Workers’ Unions (JCRWU) reports being harassed by the Police and the Government on grounds of its alleged relations with the political group Kakumaru.
Under this programme, unskilled workers mostly from developing countries receive a one-year visa (renewable for up to three years) to come to Japan for technical training. Labour laws are applied to the trainees and they are granted the right to organise and so on, but it is reported that in some cases the trainees are sent to Japan by the dispatching organisation in their home country on the condition that they will not exercise the right to organise.
Furthermore, since the existence of an accepting organisation is a precondition for the trainees to enter Japan, the position of the accepting organisation is overwhelmingly advantageous compared to that of the trainees.
As a result, the strongly-positioned accepting organisations restrict the right to organise, and there are many cases in which trainees have been made to work long hours under very inadequate working conditions.
In addition, in the first stage of the technical training, the trainees are supposed to undergo a Japanese language course, but the judgment concerning whether the trainees are workers under the Trade Union Act during the period of the course is ambiguous.