Newsletter No. 26
JANUARY 2005
|
Japan: all work and no pay Rengo, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, is taking on companies for not paying overtime. It opened a hotline in November to take complaints from those who have not been paid for working extra hours and instructing member unions to seek payment from companies’ managements. Where this does not work Rengo then files an official complaint with the Labor Standards Inspection Office. The office sought unpaid overtime for 195,000 workers from 1,184 companies in 2003/04. Unpaid overtime is the tip of the iceberg in a labour market that once guaranteed employees life time employment, but is now ‘deregulated’. Unemployment is stuck around 5 per cent and newly created jobs are increasingly part-time, insecure and lower paid. Companies have a habit of shedding full-time employees & re-hiring part-time employees who cost less. ‘Non-regular’ workers, which include part-timers, now make up 35 per cent of the workforce. Real wages have fallen for eight years running and consumer power is waning. Japanese retailers are facing pressure from monsters like Wal-Mart and many manufacturers are shifting production to low-wage countries, including China (‘Japan’s falling wages slow consumer spending’ Bloomberg 12.19.04). Hong Kong: workers not happy Research reveals a very unhappy workforce in Hong Kong: looks like one country is not pleasing many workers in either system! Most people in Hong Kong consider they work too much and this detracts from their life because they have no time to spend with family or friends. More are unhappy with their job than are happy with it. The average working week in HK is 55 hours, but 80 per cent report they regularly work unpaid overtime and 75 per cent work late into the evenings. While 60 per cent work late to get their jobs done and be more productive, 40 per cent stay out of obligation (until the boss leaves) and work less hard because they’re expected to stay late. Over 75 per cent of survey respondents suffer from stress and lack of exercise, 45 per cent report exhaustion and 33 per cent depression as a result of their work. Twenty eight per cent take sickies to recover from working long hours & people want more hours. They need strong, independent unions so they can fight for what they want! |