There is a perception that lifetime employment - long considered a bedrock of the Japanese labour market – is starting to crumble. If so, how are Japanese union responding to these changes?

The lifetime employment system of wages has continued until now, although only people born during the years of the Second World War benefit from this.

So even though there are many women entering the workforce now, they do not benefit from this. There are also other types of workers, part-time workers, temporary workers, contract workers, and they don’t benefit from the system of lifetime employment, and never have.

So as a union we are thinking that wages should not be based on the length of time you’re with an organization, but the qualifications you have and your productivity.

How successful has the Japanese trade union movement been at adapting to the needs of the different categories of workers?

There’s new legislation coming in which will bring the condition of these workers into line with full-time workers, and we need to enforce that.

How successful has the Japanese trade union movement been in recruiting these workers?

We haven’t really progressed enough. There are two unions focused mostly on the retail industry, however, that have been quite successful in beginning to organise these workers.

Do you think the Japanese trade union movement is becoming more responsive to the needs of women workers?

Since we were successful in our campaign to introduce equal opportunity legislation, it is now illegal to discriminate against women, in hiring and in wages, in working conditions and in terms of where women are located in their jobs.

Another thing that has improved the position of women is our successful campaign for parental leave legislation, where women and men can both take leave following the birth of a child.

A further example of a campaign RENGO has been involved in is the reduction of working hours, which should further help individuals balance the competing demands of work and family.

Has it been hard for you to advance in the Japanese labour movement?

It has been very, very hard. RENGO has a plan of promoting the rise of women leaders in the union movement, from which I personally was able to benefit.

Something that really helped to push this along was the UN Treaty to Abolish all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

So do you feel the Japanese union culture is changing?

There are still many male unionists who think women should still have no power at all. But at the present time it has become more difficult for them to say that.

Japan has undergone a period of sustained economic stagnation, which many have attributed to the high cost of Japanese labour. Does the Japanese union movement agree with this view, and if not, what do they think needs to be done to return the economy to health?

Employers often tell us that Japanese workers’ wages are too high. But we don’t think the solution is to reduce their wages. Mostly because when you reduce their wages, then workers are unable to purchase consumer goods, unable to enjoy any leisure time, and we don’t think that is a very good way to return Japan to a better economic position.

So what do you think needs to happen?

As a union movement, we’re pursuing the notion of work sharing. For example we’ve got more unemployed people than we’ve ever had before, so we’re trying to shorten working hours and promote job sharing.

We’re also thinking that there is a need to widen the definition of those eligible for social insurance. In that way you’ll take away the insecurity people feel and they’ll be inclined to spend money on consumer goods, which would perhaps contribute to improvement of the economy.

There’s widespread concern about the export of Japanese jobs to China. What is the Japanese union movement’s response to these developments? Is there anything they can do?

The low cost of labour in China is the reason used by many companies to move. There is some kind of communication between Japanese and Chinese unions. As a union we’re also working toward getting the Chinese government to cooperate with international labour regulations.

We’re trying to get Japanese companies to think about producing goods of a much higher value, and to produce goods that can’t necessarily be produced elsewhere.

Finally, what inspired you to become a trade unionist?

My interest in unions came from the fact that as a woman, when having a child, I wanted to have enough time off to care for the child. And as the child grew older I wanted more child-care facilities for my child.

The second reason is that at my workplace, I felt that I had the same ability and I worked at the same level around me, so I wanted to be taken as seriously and to be valued as highly as the men at my workplace. Many of the women I worked with felt the same way and we joined the union to pursue that goal.

But even before that I had a strong social conscience—I was born in Hiroshima, and I grew up to be very concerned about issues relating to peace.