Premier Approaches Workers

Reaching the workers should be a common political subject both in United States and Japan. Joe Biden surprised the world with his appearance in the picket line of United Automobile Workers. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida joined, for the first time in these sixteen years, the annual convention of Japan Trade Union Confederation and gave a speech for asking better understandings on his policy for raising wage. In the case of Japan, there also was a motivation for Kishida to divide the opposition parties.

In his speech to JTUC, Kishida paid respect for the efforts to raise the workers’ wage shown in the annual labor negotiations in this spring or discussion over the minimum wage in this early summer. “Our economy is getting a chance to shift from the cost-cutting type of economy to the one in ‘moderate temperature’ in which we feel certain enthusiasm in capital investment and wage. I don’t want miss this opportunity,” said Kishida. He did not forget selling his political agenda: good circulation in economy through investment in the human and common notion of tomorrow better than today.

 

JTUC has long been the main supporter for the opposition parties. It was established in 1989 with integration of General Council of Trade Unions of Japan that supported Japan Socialist Party and Japanese Confederation of Labor leaning on Democratic Socialist Party. Though JTUC has been supporting Constitutional Democratic Party these years, it gradually approaching the leading Liberal Democratic Party under the leadership of the president Tomoko Yoshino.

 

Among the opposition parties, National Democratic Party shows flexible attitude toward Kishida administration, approving the annual budget bill last year. Kishida picked a former member of the House of Coucillors with NDP, Wakako Yata, for the adviser to the prime minister in charge of wage and employment issues. Yata was an executive member of Panasonic Labor Union which has been on the side of Democratic Socialist Party. The nomination invited a speculation that Kishida aimed to the division between CDP and NDP.

 

With decades long dominance of LDP in the politics of Japan, the influence of labor unions has been declining. The estimatee ratio of workers affiliating to labor union marked 16.5% last year, the lowest in the post-war Japan. The workers affiliated to JTUC are mainly working for large corporations.The part-time workers or freelances have not sufficiently been unionized.

 

In the time of the Cold War, the labor unions in Japan have been on the liberal side, leaning on socialism, assuring workers’ right and supporting pro-constitution and anti-war movements. Having those ideological oppositions lagged, the labor unions seek practical achievements for the workers. The demand curiously seems to be synchronizing with Kishida’s political agenda.

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