March 17, 2010
IMF-JC
At its 6th Strategic Committee meeting, held today from 11:00 a.m., the IMF-JC accepted responses for the designated union for aggregating responses and other unions, and confirmed the following elements of its way forward for the JC Joint Struggle in small and medium-sized unions that would later be receiving their responses.
- The IMF-JC has prioritized its 2010 Spring Offensive as an effort to boost the Japanese economy through “investment in people” that will maintain motivation and protect livelihoods. Specifically, we have put all of our efforts into negotiations to realize the following demands: (1) Fully ensuring the regular pay raise amount; (2) Ensuring bonuses to protect livelihoods; (3) Achieving work-life balance through shorter actual working hours and greater overtime pay rates; (4) Greater signing of intra-company minimum wage agreements and increases in minimum wages; (5) Increases in compensation for work and transportation-related disasters; and (6) Enforcement of labor-management agreements to stabilize employment of non-regular workers and improve overall working conditions.
- In response to our demands, the management side arrived at this Unified Response Day amidst continuing tough negotiations up to the finish, acknowledging the cooperation and efforts by union members toward improved company performance but asserting “the need to strengthen cost competitiveness through curbs on overall personnel costs.” As of today at 12:00 p.m., 40 unions among the designated aggregating unions have received responses.
(1) All unions receiving responses have ensured their regular pay raise amounts.
(2) For bonuses, the overall responses indicate that efforts and cooperation by labor union members were considered.
(3) For increases in overtime pay rates, we were able to have all working hours outside the prescribed working hours, including public holidays, included in the calculations. This will be a huge boost for future small and medium-sized union negotiations. Overtime pay rate increases were not achieved.
(4) For increases in intra-company minimum wages (industry-based minimum wages) and expanded signing of minimum wage agreements, we were able to contribute to improvements for non-regular workers and fulfill a certain role to society.
(5) For increases in compensation for work and transportation-related disasters, we made progress toward increasing levels for the metal industry as a whole.
- With today's posted responses, while some issues remain in terms of the intent of our demands, they are the results of the earnest efforts of corporate union associations and individual unions unified with workplaces under the direction of industry-based unions, and we interpret them as responses that lead to the preservation of motivation and stability in workers' livelihoods.
The fact that the entire metal industry was able to maintain its regular pay raise amount will largely influence the forthcoming responses for small and medium-sized unions and will contribute to boosting wages for all workers. Likewise, we fulfilled a certain role as the metalworkers' division for the RENGO policy of “improving working conditions for all workers including non-regular workers.”
- From today, the critical moment will come for negotiations for small and medium-sized unions, which comprise a great majority of the IMF-JC's unions. We will put all of our effort into fully ensuring the regular pay raise amount, obtaining improvements in wages in line with unions' requests, and ensuring bonuses to provide stability in livelihoods.
In addition, with consideration for our duties to society, we will work toward raises in intra-company minimum wages (industry-based minimum wages) and expansions in signing of minimum wage agreements to lead to boosts in wages for non-regular workers. We will also work to implement labor-management agreements related to labor conditions and jobs for non-regular workers.
- Our 7th Strategic Committee Meeting will be held on Sunday, April 4 from 11:00 a.m.
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