The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 12 | Issue 15 | Number 1 | Apr 13, 2014

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Limited Regular Employment and the Reform of Japan’sDivision of Labor 限定正規雇用と日本の分業改革

Scott North

Precis:

Responses to Japanese Prime Minister Abe’sproposed labor reforms, which are part of theeconomic stimulus plan known as Abenomics,are a window on the positions of majorstakeholders' social debates in Japan’s future.This paper identifies, summarizes, and analyzessix responses to one of the proposed structuralreforms: new labor rules that would encourageexpansion of “limited regular employment,” anemployment status between Japan’s famous“lifetime employment” and the burgeoningnumber of non-regular workers. Proponents inthe business community and government toutlimited regular employment (gentei seikikoyou) as a way to introduce flexibility andmobility in the labor market, boostingproductivity, and helping stem the bifurcationof Japanese society into winners, with regularemployment, and losers, with non-regular jobs.Opponents, however, see the proposed reformsas an ominous step toward dismantling Japan’salready weak worker protections. They arguethat limited regular employment is a poison pillcontaining inherent contradictions thatthreaten the hopes of women and youngerworkers for stable careers, as well as looseninglong-standing social and legal constraints onemployers’ r ight to dismiss workers.Parliamentary debate on this labor legislation isset for the summer of 2014.

Since Adam Smith promoted the division oflabor as the path to “universal opulence” in the17th century, it has been the engine ofproductivity and a major determinant of social

structure. Changes in the division of laborportend changes in the division of property,power, and social honor. For most of the post-World War II period, Japan’s most significantdivision of labor has been between regular正規employees, unlimited in duties or duration ofwork (i.e. permanent or “lifetime employment,”more common for males in larger enterprises),and non-regular 非正規employees (variouskinds of limited term contracts or hourly wagejobs, generally more common for women and insmaller firms). The social order created by thisdivision of labor was seen as a fair reflection ofresults of meritocratic educational competitionand taken-for-granted gender roles; perceivedfairness contributed to Japan’s postwar socialstability.

In the early 1990s, Japan executed a manageddrawdown of regular employees as firmsstruggled to cope with effects of the collapse ofthe famous asset bubble. The concurrent, sharprise in non-regulars -- from about 10% in 1990to about 40% of the labor force today (andmore than 50% of younger workers (Morioka2013)) -- has given rise to insecurity andanxiety.1 Competition for good regular posts isintense; some posts, while regular, are notgood, and about a fifth of non-regulars wantregular employment but can’t find it (MHLW2013, 30-32). Only 41.5% of available jobs areregular positions (Mainichi Shinbun 2014).Meanwhile, regular workers may face demandsfor increased productivity that diminish thestatus advantages of regular employment. Thestatus gap between workers in the two types ofemployment, however, still representsdifferential life chances – time binds and work-life imbalance for better compensated regulars,

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and underpay and poor career possibilities fornon-regulars, who get less respect and mayreceive less than a living wage for a nearly 40-hour workweek. The relative poverty of theworking poor is linked to delays in marriageand consequent birthrate declines. Thisgrowing imbalance in (and between) the livesof regular “core” and non-regular “peripheral”workers is starting to threaten socialreproduction and Japan’s long-term socialstability.

The Abe cabinet discusses growth strategy (Source:Office of the Prime Minister)

Prime Minister Abe has proposed reforms tocreate within five years “a society with flexibleand varied ways of working,” and “World Top-Level Employment Environment andWorkstyle” as part of his economic stimulusplan known as “Abenomics.” Comprised of“three arrows,” the goal of Abenomics is to freeJapan from the grip of deflation. Having moreor less hit the mark with the first two arrows offiscal and monetary stimulus (business profitsand the stock market rose dramatically, whilethe value of the yen fell by about 20 percentagainst the US dollar), the government is nowreadying the third arrow, a legislative packageof more than 30 structural reforms, thatexperts say are needed to consolidate andcontinue the recovery. These reforms includelabor deregulation intended to diversify

employment possibilities through developmentof a more fluid labor market. That is, anhistoric shift from support for employmentstability to support for mobility. To some extentthis is already being realized. There are todayabout as many jobs as job seekers in Japan andthe main measure of unemployment puts it ataround 4 percent. Employers foresee laborshortages, which may force them to raisewages. To remain competitive firms wantgreater flexibility to allocate labor as needed bydismissing some workers and making increaseduse of less costly non-regulars. But, at the sametime, they do not want to lose the high level ofdependable commitment that they have beenable to get from their regular, core workers,whose “lifetime employment” binds them to thefirm. Their continued existence also constitutesthe bedrock of workplace hierarchies throughwhich power is exercised.

Limited regular employment (gentei seiki koyou限定正規雇用)2 is offered as a solution that fitsthe needs of both workers and employers. Thispaper offers a preliminary analysis of thisproposed labor reform, which is expected topass through the Diet during debate on laborlaws and the establishment of special economiczones that are part of Abenomics in thesummer of 2014. A hybrid solution to thegrowing gap between regular and non-regularwork, there is as yet no consensus aboutgentei, but just over half of larger firms (300 ormore employees) already have such employeesand the trend is spreading (Hokkaido Shinbun,2013). In legitimizing this intermediatecategory in the division of labor by setting rulesfor gentei work, the debate will have importantimplications for employment ethics, contractualnorms, and relations in production, as well asfor the lives and careers of people in Japan andthe viability of Japanese companies. Followinga brief overview showing where genteiemployment fits in the recent history ofemployment practices, this paper outlines sixkey viewpoints in the debate and discusses theinterplay of their positions. Conflict between

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these six camps represents the commonalignment of forces on many emerging laborand social issues in Japan. Limited regularemployment is thus a window on the relativeinfluence of social forces determining Japan’strajectory, their implications for socialstructure and fairness, and the possibilities foreconomic revitalization.

Japan’s Dual Employment System: Coreand Periphery

The stereotypical image of postwar Japanesecompanies is that they are communitiesorganized for their members’ mutual benefit(Rohlen 1974). However, Japan’s coreemployment, the famous “lifetime employment”or “permanent employment,” did not representemployer ideals. It was actually a temporaryexpedient that companies used to retain skilledlabor during the high-speed economic growthperiod (1955-1973). Its prevalence has beenconsistently overstated. That firms recruitedemployees only from new graduates was also amyth. Even in the heyday of this notion, 50-80%of hires were experienced workers, and, whilelarger firms recruited new workers straight outof school, smaller ones could not do so untilafter the 1980s boom in college graduates(Levine 1983, 26). Despite labor force growth,the external job market was relativelyunderdeveloped. Still, three or more changes ofemployer were the lifetime norm in Levine’ssomewhat speculative calculation in theearly1980s (Levine 1983, 27) and Cole (1979,88-90) also reported separation to be far morecommon than staying with a single firmthroughout a career. The stability of the systemwas the result of expanding job opportunitiesinside firms due to rapid economic growth andaccompanying labor demand. These careeropportunities were available almost exclusivelyto men.

Although unlimited lifetime employment with asingle employer did not describe most Japanesecareers, in time it came to inform ideals about

social and productive relations between laborand capital (and men and women) in Japan.Focusing on practices of larger firms, foreignand domestic scholars promoted these ideals assources of Japanese competitiveness andstrength. “Theory Z” Japanese-stylemanagement spawned imitations in the West inthe 1980s, but no longer. As the economicgrowth and expanding job opportunities thatsustained pursuit of the Japanese idealdisappeared, Japanese managers increasinglyadopted America’s neoliberal creed. Forms ofcontingent employment expanded rapidly aftera wave of labor market deregulation in 1994.Companies today are continuing to rapidlydismantle costly traditions of employmentsecurity. The dilemma they face is how to getmore use out of non-regulars and move awayfrom a system of seniority and continuoustenure, still accepted by most workers as thenon-contractual basis of contracts, withoutdestroying the moral authority of workplacepower relations rooted in age-graded (andgendered) hierarchies. Moreover, courts haveinterpreted existing laws according to the“common sense of society” that, in exchangefor worker loyalty and obedience, employersare responsible for worker well-being andsocial stability. Legislating social stability fromthe bench has severely restricted bothemployers’ legal right to dismiss workers andregular employees’ ability to resist evenextreme employer demands (Foote 1996;Yamakawa 2007; Upham 2011).

Consequently, employers have sought flexibilitythrough more intensive use of regular workers(whose commitment and obligations areunlimited) and increased use of heretoforemarginal, cheaper types of labor, such as fixed-term or occupationally restricted contractworkers, temporary agency dispatchedworkers, and expanded use of part-timers,including the oxymoronic “full-time part-timers.” Issues arising from ad hoc reshapingof employment categories, rules, and practicesat the firm level are reflected in resulting legal

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challenges. Typical are:

-suits claiming contracts were illegallyterminated

-suits over the status and duties of dispatchworkers

-suits about unpaid overtime

-suits claiming wage discrimination

-suits about death from overwork (karoshi)

-suits about suicide and depression caused byoverwork

-suits involving exploitation of trainees, manyfrom China

-suits resulting from American-style “lockoutfirings”

-suits related to “black corporation” practices,including harassment, abuse, and falsepromises.

Abenomics and Employment Reforms

The Abe government’s proposed employmentreforms are the work of a policy incubatorcalled the Industrial Competitiveness Council(産業競争力会議), which Mr. Abe chairs. Itsproposals are a big part of a package of 30-plusnew laws for economic revitalization beingdeveloped under the Nihon Keizai Saisei HonbuJapan Economic Revitalization Taskforce (日本経済再生本部), a cabinet-level gathering alsounder the prime minister’s leadership. Theoverall name for these policies is “new growthstrategy” (新成長戦略), dubbed Abenomics, alabel the Prime Minister and his party havepropagated and embraced. Early successesallowed Abe to announce to the world that,“Japan is back.” He now says the reforms are ata critical point and he is calling on theleg is la ture to become a “FavorableEnvironment Realizing Diet”3 that will pass the“third arrow” package of laws and show the

world that Japan is making concrete progresson long-standing structural issues.

The three arrows of Abenomics (Source: Office of thePrime Minister)

How the legislative process will play out will beinteresting to watch, but Mr. Abe’s coalitiongovernment controls a legislative majority, andthe general outline of his plan is clear enoughin documents f rom Abe’s Industr ia lCompetitiveness Council. Composed ofpoliticians, academics, and business leaders,the Council has no labor representatives. Theplan calls for strengthening competitivenessthrough a rush of changes that will correctdistortions – under-investment, over-regulation,and excessive competition – to give Japanability to win in global competition. TheCouncil’s discussions have given prominence toa number of long-simmering businesscommunity demands intended to boost theinternational competitiveness of Japaneseexporters and resolve thorny employmentissues that have been grounds for domesticlegal action. Taken as a whole, the employmentreform aspects of Abe’s 3 rd arrow aim tonormalize and support existing employerpractices, including rewriting work rules andemployment contracts to permit “varied types

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of regular employment.”

In the run up to parliamentary debate on thelegislation some “trial balloons” have beenfloated to test the strength of the opposition.For example, reforms to Article 16 of the LaborStandards Law, the portion that regulatesdismissals, were suggested, but it appears theymay not be part of the final package at thistime.4 The proposal for an American-stylesystem of separat ion payments drewparticularly harsh criticism. Nor it seems willthere be separate labor contract rules inspecial economic zones that Mr. Abe hasproposed. One incarnation of that idea wouldhave allowed practices introduced bycompanies having headquarters in specialeconomic zones (Osaka, Tokyo, and Nagoyawere mentioned) to be introduced in all of thefirm’s locations throughout the country. Thiswas shot down by the Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare (MHLW), which refused tocountenance drafting and enforcing a duallabor regulations regime (Nikkei Shinbun2013b).

Now that the plan has been streamlined foreasier passage through the Diet, what will itlook like? An overview taken from the mostrecent report of the Industrial CompetitivenessCouncil entitled, A Society Where EverybodyParticipates (全員参加型社会), simultaneouslyconveys feelings of “total mobilization” andequality of opportunity. The elements belowrelate to employment system reforms and“strengthening of human resources” (PrimeMinister’s Office 2014).

1. Labor mobility without unemployment.Construction of a society with employmentopportunities such that young people, women,and the elderly can be active and their abilitiesexercised to the fullest extent. Fundspreviously paid to firms to support employmentstability will be used to help workers movebetween jobs without gaps. Between jobs,workers will take training courses offered by

personnel businesses created by the newsystem. Funds may also be used for on the jobtraining. The aim is to redeploy workers toareas of the economy where labor demand isgrowing.

2. Reform the employment insurance system toprovide up to 60% of the cost of retraining andenable young and unemployed workers to“career up” or change careers. By 2016 thebudget for these training and mobility fundswill exceed the current budget for employmentadjustment support (雇用調整助成金).

3. Make available to private sector personnelbusinesses jobs information formerly availableonly through the MHLW’s “Hello Work”employment centers.

4. Change the dispatched worker law,eliminating almost all limits on using tempstaff. Emphasize matching of supply anddemand rather than worker protection.

5. Revise from 5 to 10 years the period of timebefore which non-regular workers withspecialized ability and or high salaries of acertain level have the right to apply totransition to regular worker status.

6. Expand the portion of the short-hours laborforce that is protected from discriminatorytreatment (by eliminating the requirement ofan “unlimited” contract as prerequisite forreceiving legal protection).

7. Admit more skilled foreigners under a pointsystem.

8. Realize Japan as a place where women canshine. Improve childcare options; create aneutral tax and social benefits system to allowchoice of workstyle; lead through the PM’soffice by establishing therein an office of“information dissemination.”

9. A three-part set of employment rule andwork hour reforms to create varied ways of

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working (三位一体の労働時間改革). Theseprovisions would limit working hours for someworkers, strengthen efforts to get workers totake paid leave, and expand discretionary laborfor workers in occupations where hours aredifficult to calculate. This includes exemptingemployers from having to pay overtimepremiums to discretionary hours workers andsimplifying procedures for registering workersas exempt from work hour regulation.

Reform in these areas will reduce employeruncertainty and associated hesitancy aboutexpanding the hiring and use of workers whoare neither regular nor non-regular. In fact,about 50% of larger firms have alreadyintroduced some form of limited regularemployment. Common examples include:employment limited by location (limited to onelocation, no transfers); by job (duties arelimited); and by hours of work (no or lowovertime).5 Workers who want to limit theircommitment, avoid transfers, escape unlimiteddemands, and avoid long hours, especiallyunpaid overtime, embrace gentei employment.This group includes married women andmothers, young people, and some olderworkers whose pensions are inadequate or whowant to remain active in later life.

Mr. Abe thus proposes a framework of legalrules to support what many firms are alreadydoing. Why then is it attracting so muchattention and comment? Establishing a clearlegal framework for gentei seishain willstimulate expansion of this more flexible andprofitable form of employment, creating apotential win-win-win situation for firms,workers, and the nation. But at the same time,gentei seishain employment legitimates asemantic contradiction that threatens tocorrode the concept of employment.Heretofore, seishain – regular employee – hasimplied mugentei “unlimited” or “permanent”employment akin to family membership. Genteiseishain – “limited regular employment,” withtermination or departure rather than

permanence expected – directly contradicts theestablished common sense of “employment.”Normalizing this contradiction is certain tocreate confusion, even as it papers-over the gapin life chances between core and peripheralworkers. Responses to Abenomics employmentreform proposals thus reflect feelings about thegeneral direction of contemporary Japanesesociety, the struggle to balance economictransformation with social fairness inparticular. As the legislation heads fordeliberation in the Diet, what is the range ofopinion about the outcome of these proposals?Will the new division of labor liberate animalspirits and renewed hopes of growth, as Mr.Abe argues? With what consequences forworkers? We turn now to summarize six pointsof view that represent the range of opinions inthe debate on this issue.

The Activist Left

The left has been the source of much colorfullanguage that attempts to galvanize theworking class by capturing the gestalt ofJapanese work today. “Black corporations” (ブラク企業), karoshi (過労死death from overwork)and karou jisatsu (過労自殺work-inducedsuicide), “power harassment” (パワハラ),“whitecollar exemption” or zangyou nashi hou (残業なし法 “no overtime pay law”), nabakarikanrishoku (名ばかり管理職managers in nameonly), and karoshi boushikihonhou

(過労死防止基本法Basic Law for the Preventionof Karoshi) , are but a few of the mostprominent examples. Centered on laborlawyers (労働弁護団) and supported by variousCommunist Party-affiliated labor unions, aswell as other small parties and their laborallies, Japan’s activist left argues that allemployment should be regular, with companiesobliged to ensure stable employment. In thisview, the purpose of the firm is to supportworkers, their families and communities.Without long-term mutual commitment,traditional social ethics, which entitle workers

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to benevolent treatment from employers,cannot operate. The activists characterizeemployment reforms as “destruction ofemployment”

(雇用破壊) that will give employers a free handwhile stripping workers of traditional rightsand legal protections. They criticize Abe’sproposals as naked expressions of ruling classinterests and they oppose the spread of limitedregular employment, seeing it as betrayal ofmoral human relations ideals founded on long-term mutual commitment.

These activists emphasize that when a majorityof workers have non-regular posts and thezeitgeist changes, the door will be open tolower wages and easier layoffs, somethingemployers have long sought. Leftists don’t trustemployers to honor promises of long-termemployment for limited regular workers,pointing out that they will always face thepossibility of being cast aside when they are nolonger needed. Their “membership” isconditional and thus not true membership.Limited regular employment will be a wedge,cleaving regular employment into competinghalves and pitting them against other, even lesssecure, forms of employment. Fear of easierdismissal is common on the left. In pursuinglower costs, companies could close unprofitableoffices, plants, or stores. Employees whoseemployment is limited (“You were hired as aworker in this location.”) could be terminatedwith the closing of their workplace or theelimination of their job designation or category.Moreover, regular workers may face bothdownward pressure on wages or increasinglyheavy work quotas because limited regularswill do the same work as regular workers, butfor less pay and few or no benefits.

The statement opposing employment reformissued by Minpoukyou (2013), the DemocraticLegal Association, exemplifies this viewpoint.6

Declaring their determination to fight in thecourts, it first concisely summarizes the

proposed reforms, noting that proposed specialeconomic zones will become incubators andinsertion points for pol icies, such asexemptions from overtime pay for white-collarworkers, that are too hot to push through theDiet. The statement criticizes deregulation forallowing companies to avoid responsibility andcausing damage to worker lives and rights.Since the “Lehman Shock” (financial crisis of2008), Japan’s electronics industry in particularhas been site of forced restructuring andcorporations have been absolved (免罪) ofresponsibility to maintain employment.Workers have been cut adrift and left to fendfor themselves. Similarly, the increase ofindirectly employed dispatch workers makestheir posi t ion even less secure thanbefore.Moreover, deregulating work hoursthrough a discretionary work hours system (裁量労働制) makes workers responsible for thenumber of hours they work, although they haveno control over workloads. This will only causedamage to worker health and lives.

In this view, gentei "job-based regularemployment" is, in the end, nothing more thanan excuse to permit poor treatment for"second-class regular employees" whose jobscan cease to exist by employer fiat. This newcategory of employees is intentionally createdout of a desire for the legalized lawlessness ofunlimited dismissal (整理解雇) as seen in theviolence of "banishment rooms,” “lockoutfirings,” “black corporation” practices, andlong, overly intense hours of work that destroyworker health leading to burnout and karoshi.From the point of view of social equality andworkers' lives, what is needed is thoroughregulation of dismissals and strong legalprotec t ion o f employment and l i fe ,improvement of non-regular worker treatment,increased minimum wages, and improvement inworking conditions. From the perspective ofMinpoukyou and the activist left, Abe and hisbackers are proposing almost exactly theopposite.

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Another concern of the activist left is that thespread of limited regular employment willincrease pressure for exemptions fromregulations on overtime pay for regularworkers. One leading leftist academic (Morioka2013b) notes that loopholes in Japan’s overtimeregulations (Art. 36 of Labor Standards Law)already permit hours so excessive that “deathculture” is legitimated. When people are dying,he asks, “How can work be deregulated anyfurther?” and says the reform proposals do notshow consciousness of the karoshi (deaths dueto overwork) problem. Caring only forcorporate global izat ion and putt ingconsumption last, Japanese companies havefailed to raise wages. Lower labor standardsare necessary to induce foreign investment,and this, says the left, is the true aim of Abe’slabor reforms.

Labor Economists

Many labor economists sympathize with theplight of workers, but on the limited regularemployment issue some well-known publicintellectuals are taking a pro-reform line.7 Theirview is rooted in the idea that it is unlimitedemployment that creates many of the problemsidentified by the left. Overwork and work-lifeimbalance are part and parcel of regularemployment, but that is strange, they say,because the Labor Standards Law mandates anILO-compliant 8-hour day/40-hour week, anddoes not, in principle, permit overtime.8 Japan’senterprise unions are unable to take militantaction because they are dependent on theirfirms.

Flyer for an August 2013 symposium on limitedregular employment featuring Kumazawa Makoto,Wakita Shigeru, and Kinoshita Takeo. The title reads,“What are the arguments concerning limited regularemployment? The transition from Japanese styleregular employment and the choices of the labormovement.” (Source: POSSE)

Limited employment, on the other hand, wouldreduce Japan’s increasingly polarized regular-non-regular gap in wages and careerpossibilities by promoting mobility throughlimited regular employment. A more fluid andforgiving labor market makes workersindependent, liberating them from “lifetimeemployment” whose burdensome male ideologyof the self-sacrificing ideal worker and standardof continuous, unlimited work commitment putsmost women off the career track. If workerscould vote with their feet, companies wouldhave to improve working conditions. Blackcorporation practices and abuses of power,much decried by the left, would diminish asJapan’s shrinking population drives up labordemand. Indeed, the labor market is alreadytightening, raising the specter of wage costincreases (Iwamoto 2014). In addition,expanded corporate welfare, training, and caremay become necessary inducements forkeeping good workers. Social belonging andthe psychological rewards of membership wereimportant compensations for Japanese workersin the past, and they may be again, for fewseem enthusiastic about trading stability formobility.

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Kumazawa Makoto, who has argued ascogently as anyone for the rights of workers,believes that it would be good for all workers tobe gentei seishain because it would underminethe male ideal worker as the standard ofregular employment. The hope is that Japancan become Holland, with government, labor,and capital reaching a Wassenaar-styleagreement that can serve as the basis forprogress. (Nikkei Shinbun 2013a)

Japan’s employment policy research reached akey point in the 2010 report by a committee ofprominent labor scholars (Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare 2010) that proposedlimited regular employment and labor mobilityas solutions to growing class polarization andthe rising number of non-regulars. The reportenvisioned creating a “trampoline-style society”with a safety net that would catch those whofall out of employment, retrain them, and thenlaunch them back into the labor force. Thisconsensus view among leading academicsabout a society of second chances has evolvedthrough the election of Prime Minister Abe in2013 and after. In addition to limited regularemployment, new rules about dispatchedworkers and Labor Contracts Law reforms areall part of preparing the environment for theshift from employment maintenance support tolabor mobility.

Will dismissal reform be part of the picture?University of Tokyo emeritus law professor,Sugeno Kazuo, is optimistic that limited regularemployees will not be easily terminated (AsahiShinbun 2013). The support for long-termemployment is strong in companies, thejudiciary, and the working publ ic sofundamental change is unlikely. Specifically, heargues that there is no room to change Article16 of the Labor Standards Law, whichmandates that employers meet four objectiveand rational conditions for dismissal.9 Thanksto judicial activism, only dismissals that are inaccord with the “common sense of society” (社会通念) are valid. Strong support for existing

practices of long-term employment means thatArticle 16 is unlikely to be repudiated. Sugenothinks management and labor need to reachconsensus on how workers of variouscategories should be treated, that it is not amatter for government intervention. He feelsthat creating multiple “regular employee”categories can help fix the polarizing regularvs. non-regular distinction.

Are limited regular employees likely to workless hard? Research by another laboreconomist (Tanaka 2010) indicates thatchanges in commitment are l ikely toaccompany the introduction of widespreadlimited regular employment. As lower-paidemployees whose membership is limited, theymay harbor resentment if the burdens put onthem are the same as unlimited regulars, whowill get more money and long-term perks. Thiscould undermine their zeal for the kind oforganizational citizenship behavior thatJapanese companies often expect of all theirworkers.1 0 His paper on organizationalcitizenship behavior concludes, “…employeeempowerment can hardly be secured ifemployees suffer anxiety because their long-term employment is not guaranteed.” (Tanaka2010,15) So the question of whether limitedregular employment will be enough of a lure,and provide enough status and a strong enoughsense of membership to make people want tobe good corporate citizens, is an important one.

Organized Labor

Union membership and union activity (strikes)have both fallen dramatically in the last 35years. Fewer than one in six Japanese workersbelongs to a union. And most Japan unions areenterprise unions: they are generally made uponly of regular workers whose fortunes are tiedto their firms. Consequently, unions shy awayfrom confrontations with management. Theirprime concern is protecting members’ jobstability, which encourages fealty to thecompany line. They are generally much less

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concerned with work conditions than withsalaries. Rengo, the largest labor federation,tries to represent the general interests ofworkers, and it opposes limited regular work.The threat of easy dismissal of limited regularemployees, and other changes related to laborderegulat ion, are seen as threats toemployment stability. The growth in genteiseishain poses a threat to enterprise unionmembership, though the issue could eventuallybecome a vehicle for union organizing.

A survey carried out by Rengo (2013) paints apicture of workers buffeted by harshconditions. It found paid monthly overtimeaveraging 35.2 hours; 39.1% of workersworked paid overtime. For regular maleemployees, the overtime average was 40 hoursper month. Regular male workers worked anaverage of roughly 50 hours total per week (40hours of regular work and ten hours ofovertime). About 5% worked 80 or more hoursof overtime per month. Twelve percent of thosesurveyed by Rengo were in the long hourscategory of 50-plus monthly hours of overtime.Part-time and non-regular workers are notsupposed to work overtime, but even theyaveraged 32 hours a month (men) and 20.9hours per month (women) (Rengo 2013, 25).Nearly two-fifths (38%) of respondents felt theywere being forced to work overtime and themore overtime they worked the more stronglythey felt that it was forced. Forty-five percentof those putting in 45 to 80 hours of overtimehours per month felt forced. Above 80 hoursper month, 60 percent felt forced. About a thirdof the workers surveyed said overtime wasintegral to their job duties (Rengo 2013, 26).Dissatisfaction has to be due, in part, to unpaidovertime: 35.3 percent said they were notbeing paid for all their overtime, the averagewas 18.5 hours of unpaid overtime work permonth; 39.7% of regular male employees and34.1% of female regular workers said theywere not paid for all their hours of labor(Rengo 2013, 26). Management failure tomonitor hours, workloads, and worker health

was blamed for creating an atmosphere inwhich long hours could grow. (Rengo 2013,28).

The take-away here is that once established,long-hour norms are easy to maintain in amarket where good, “regular jobs” are scarce.Limited regular employment could be apowerful lure for hard-pressed workers, whocannot make ends meet on non-regular wages.But once hired, they may find that workplacecustoms and employer practices will placemore emphasis on the “regular” part of theirtitle rather than the “limited” part, until thefirm needs to reduce staff. Then the genteiportion of their employment status may beemphasized, as a short video on Rengo’swebsite points out (Rengo 2014).

The Rengo survey indicates that firmspurposely overwork their employees,regardless of employment status. Overtime ischeaper than hiring additional workers11 andregular workers can be induced to work unpaidhours in line with accepted, customarydemands of their employment status. Indeed,46.8% of workers said OT was caused by a lackof workers, or by sudden increases inworkloads (42.6%) that were also the result oflow staffing levels (Rengo 2013, 26).

More gentei seishain could increase the“regular” labor force and reduce some of thepressure for longer hours that is sure to growas Japan’s population ages. Would suchemployees be union members? With regard tounion membership or termination, which aspectof their identity, limited or regular, would takeprecedence?

Women

Women are perhaps the main target of limitedregular employment policy plans. Boostingfemale labor force participation, but in a waythat also allows them to care for children andthe elderly, is seen as adding significantly toJapanese economic growth and social stability

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(Nohara 2014). But Japan’s history of attemptsto legislate women into greater socialprominence is littered with deceptions. TheEqual Employment Opportunity Law is anotable failure: companies evaded the EEOL bysimply renaming their permanent (male) andnon-permanent (female) tracks to give theillusion of equal treatment, but the reality wasthat everyone knew, and most accepted, thatsougoushoku was male, career employment andippanshoku was non-permanent, femaleemployment. The Japanese terms translate as“comprehensive” and “general” respectively,and in English there is not much distinctionbetween them. But in Japan their gendersignificance is well understood by all. To justifythis distinction, and to deny women careertrack employment, the sougoshoku employeesat some firms became subject to transfers, evenif they had not been so before (Hamaguchi2011, 193). From the perspective of companiesand most women themselves, employmentlimited to a single location is the preferred wayof working.

The same denial of equality is likely for womenwho are limited regular employees. Thefeminist labor scholar, Osawa Mari (2013), saysthe gentei seishain system will be unequal anddiscriminatory. Limited regulars will be paid alittle more than part-timers or other non-regulars, perhaps 80% of what regular workersmake,12 but they will not have long-term careeremployment, for that will continue to requireunconditional devotion, including overtime ondemand, transfers, or solo postings to distantcorporate outposts (tanshinfunin). Limitedregular employment will provide additionalentry points for women and young workerswho, for whatever reasons, are unsuited forregular employment. They will be told thatregular status awaits those who work hard. Butwhen contracts end, product lines arerevamped, or offices are moved they could belet go. Thus, for women, the new division oflabor is a stalking horse for making dismissaleasier and for increasing competition among

workers. Gentei seishain will be second-classcorporate citizens. And most will be women,says Osawa, so limited regular employment willbe yet another form of indirect discrimination.Of course there are just enough women insougoushoku employment to rebut charges thatthe career track is closed to them, but thedropout rate for women entering companies asregular employees remains extremely high andfew manage to rise into even the lower levels ofmanagement. No doubt there will be somefemale (and male) gentei seishain who manageto move up to unlimited regular status. Theseexamples will deflect criticism that nothing ischanging, and al low l imited regularemployment to be presented as an advance forwomen.

Osawa and many others have documented howtax and pension incentives, as well asdependent allowances paid by companies, keepwomen in low-paid part-time work where theydo not lose their status as dependents. Genderwage gaps have widened since the 1970s,despite the passage of the EEOL and Japan’sparticipation in UN CEFDAW (Osawa 2002,273). The primary reason for the failure toreduce gender wage gaps is the lack ofenforcement. Women ask if enforcement ofrules will be better under the confusion implicitin the new limited regular classification.Despite successive reforms, the EEOL still doesnot outlaw wage discrimination or mandateequal treatment. Employers were only urged to“make efforts” and there were no serioussanctions for violations. Moreover, althoughdesignating some jobs as “women-only” wasviewed as a positive step that increased femaleemployment chances, advertising jobs as men-only was illegal. For Osawa, Japan’s EEOL is“the weakest policy possible, one thateffectively encourages gender discriminationwhile, at least from an official point of view,obscuring it.” (Osawa 2002, 274) Given thishistory, women’s groups fear that “varied formsof regular employment” will simply expand thevariety of ways of discriminating. In a case

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involving a regular female worker at ChugokuElectric Company, Japan’s Supreme Courtrecently ruled against equal pay for equal workon the grounds that it did not constitute athreat to social order (Jibu 2014).

Japan is often contrasted with Western Europe,which has strong, anti-discrimination laws toprotect workers against unfavorable treatment.Can Japan overcome its heritage of taken-for-granted gender inequality? Or will it repeat itstried and true strategy of simply twistinginequality in new ways to give the illusion ofprogress toward equality? Will the plan forgentei seishain be yet another iteration of thatsame defense of masculine breadwinnerhegemony? As Osawa (2002, 275) asked of theEEOL, was the marginalization of women “a by-product of its policy goal – or the goal itself?”

Nippon Keidanren

Nippon Keizai Dantai Rengokai (Keidanren) isthe main federation of employers and a primebacker of the gentei proposal as well as otherlabor reforms. Increasing flexibility, makingdismissals easier, and strengtheningunimpeded ability to exercise managementauthority are its goals. Keidanren’s desire toemulate American labor practices is reflectedin proposals, such as the one for an exemptionfrom overtime rules for white collar workers,which take language directly from positionpapers put out by the American Chamber ofCommerce in Japan. Keidanren’s membercompanies are large firms whose practices setthe tone of the entire Japanese businesscommunity. Its support of Mr. Abe’s policieswas important to his return to power.

Keidanren strongly desires the introduction ofgentei employment as a way to reduce laborcosts, reducing the risks of moving intopotential growth fields such as care work andservice industries. It holds that limited regularemployment will give workers enough time todevelop skills and contribute to corporateprojects, while their shorter hours will give

them better work-life balance: flexibility willimprove workers lives. Clear rules for genteiemployment will allow companies to hire suchworkers confidently, protecting firms fromlawsuits and bad publicity. Terminatingworkers may become easier, though this willrequire changes to the Labor Contracts Law.The introduction of gentei seishain may alsoreduce the number of workers in the seishaincategory even further. That is, if genteiemployment becomes widespread, firms willnot have to place big bets on l i fetimeemployment workers or accept the risk theyentail (due to restrictions on firing.)

To get the maximum cost-reduction benefit outof gentei seishain, business leaders also wantto establish white collar exemptions ordiscretionary work hour systems. Somecategories of employees already havediscretionary hours. These are supposed toencourage people to work smarter so they cango home and have a life. But discretionarysystems make the worker responsible forkeeping track of hours. Coupled with subtleworkplace social pressures, quotas imposedfrom above, and evaluations that emphasizeefficiency, workers refrain from reportingexcess hours for fear of being labeledinefficient. The white-collar exemption is adirect copy of the US law that exempts certainhigh salary individuals with significantauthority from overtime regulations. In Japan,where there is a widespread and mistakenbelief that all management, even those at thelowest levels, are exempt, there have beenseveral attempts to generalize the exemption toall office workers earning above the mediansalary.13 Like discretionary work, the whitecollar exemption gives employers carte blancheto order vast amounts of work (noruma) andthen blame workers for inefficiency or lack ofskill if they cannot accomplish it in 40 hours aweek.

Seen in this light, limited regular employmentis related to other new tools for increasing

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competition among the labor force. Forexample, consider tenkan, the possibility ofmoving from non-regular to regularemployment. Workers want to do this, butemployers can manipulate the system to theiradvantage, forcing workers to meet higharbitrary targets during the years (5 or so) thatit takes to gain standing to petition for transferto regular status. Recent changes in rules forhiring and retaining agency dispatchedtemporary workers (haken) will make itpossible to rehire them on three-year contractsindefinitely. The trio of worker types – regular,limited regular, non-regular – and the welter ofalternative names and subcategories for themin particular firms, permits almost endlessmanipulation. Although Keidanren will not liketo admit it, sowing confusion is a strategy forincreasing employer power.

Permanent (regular) employment putscompanies in a tough spot. They cannot knowwhat the future will bring, so they must hirevery carefully. To avoid risk companies hirepart-timers and contract workers on renewablecontracts. Depending on type of employee,some contacts are yearly, others up to fiveyears long. Keidanren is seeking a rule thatwould allow up to ten years so that workers canhave more stabil i ty and t ime to buildcompetency, and firms can see how well theywork out. And this would seem to be a majorselling point for gentei seishain: more stabilitythan non-regular work and better opportunitiesfor skill development. A deregulated labormarket could offer opportunities better thanthose that exist today to alleviate theemployment worries of the young, help womenreturn to work after raising children, and keepolder workers in the labor force. Is the businesscommunity just trying to make a virtue ofnecessity? Everything hinges on the sort ofrules that emerge from the legislative process.

The Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare (MHLW)

Although the MHLW is onboard with the majorelements of the gentei plan to close the core-periphery gap, it does not like confusion, nordoes it want to oversee a system of conflictingrules. A study by academics close to theministry (MHLW 2010) was influential inpromoting the notion of “varied kinds of limitedregular employment” as a way to fill thegrowing gap in the regular-non-regular divisionof labor. That study also advocated hiking theminimum wage. However, Abe’s proposal forspecial economic zones with their own laborand employment rules (dubbed kaiko tokkuu,“special dismissal zones,” by opponents) wasscuppered by the MHLW which sharplycriticized it on grounds that no civilized countryhas two sets of employment rules (NikkeiShinbun 2013c). In January 2014, the MHLWreiterated that it favors equal treatment forequal work for all workers regardless ofemployment status (Nikkei Shinbun 2014). TheMinistry wants gentei employees to be eligiblefor various benefits, too.

But ministry opposition to differentialtreatment of limited regular employeescontains a loophole. Current law gives thefollowing conditions for equal treatment andpay: the part-timers and other non-regularshave to have the same level of responsibility asthe regulars; there has to be transferpossibility; the contract has to be “unlimited”(no end date). The ministry’s proposedrevisions, which will be introduced in the Dietsession just started, will only do away with thethird (unlimited contract) condition for equaltreatment. Because few non-regularsexperience contract length as a barrier to equaltreatment, the reform will only expand thenumber of part-time and contract workerseligible for equal treatment by about 100,000(almost all women) from 170,000 to 270,000(Nikkei Shinbun 2014).

Although this is, indeed, the sort of incrementalapproach Japanese bureaucrats are known for,it signifies the kind of policy the ministry would

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like to see. That is important because theministry must actually draft the rules andenforce them. Japan’s bureaucrats are not keento undermine their own authority nor to maketheir jobs more difficult, and many of themhave children who will one day be workers, too.They will do what they are ordered to do, butthe ministry has preferences of its own and itdecides how it does its job. Moreover, variety ofopinion within the ministry and its offices is notuncommon.

The proposal to use the current employmentstabilization funds to kick-start a job trainingand career counseling industry to encourageand enable mobility could be part of “newpublic sector” growth. This new public sectorcould also offer tempting post-retirementcareers to MHLW bureaucrats. Known asamakudari, the descent from heaven, it is well-known as a source of corruption. Japan’s rigidemployment system needs to change, but is thecreation of a private sector career guidanceand placement industry likely to help or harm?

More to the point, is what corporations wantthe same as what society needs? Japan’sprofessional bureaucracy does not like to beseen as a lapdog for corporate interests.Moreover, it has a slightly authoritariantradition of public service in the service ofmoral principles and the good of the nation.That people see the division of labor overseenby the ministry as fair matters a great deal tothe pride of the bureaucracy. The ministry alsoadministers welfare and efforts to boost theflagging birthrate. If turning the safety net intoa trampoline will help more women marry, havemore children, and then bounce back to work(after taking childcare leave), they will do it.Improving the quality of life is an importantpart of the Ministry’s mission, too. Butemployment policy is hardball, played for bigprofits. In the final analysis, the battle overrules guiding limited regular employment maybe fought between corporate desires andbureaucratic power. The devil will certainly be

in the details of the rules that are eventuallyset, and in their implementation in particularcorporate cultural contexts, and in theirenforcement.

Discussion

In contrast to regular employment, unlimited induration, duties, demands, and scope, limitedregular employment is restricted to a particulargeographic region, factory or office (notransfers), to specific hours (no overtime), or toparticular job duties (limited demands). Thus,the defining characteristic of regularemployment in Japan -- unlimited commitmentand acceptance of all management directives --i s absen t . L im i t ed r egu la r workercompensation, while higher than that of part-time workers, is lower than that of unlimited,regular employees. Limited regular employeesalso receive various benefits that are not paidto non-regular workers. Limits on transfers,hours, and duties make limited regularemployment attractive, especially to women,whom the Abe government is keen to bring intothe labor force to counter the fall in workingage population that is likely to drive up wagesand weaken Japan’s competitive position. Thegovernment and business interests argue thatgentei seishain and other labor flexibilityreforms are designed to restructure the labormarket, reduce risk to employers incumbent inhiring regular workers, provide a ladder forworkers to “step-up” to regular employment,and reduce inefficiencies associated withwidening social inequality. Opponents,represented in this paper by the activist left,women, and unions, see limited regularemployment as a dangerous development thatwill increase competition and job instability forall classes of workers, as well as permit easierdismissal. It is part of a plan to changeemployment rules to benefit employers inadvance of demographic changes that willcreate a sellers’ market for labor.

Changes in Japan’s division of labor have been

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attracting scholarly attention since theemployment effects of the asset bubble collapsebegan to be queried in the late 1990s. Aroundthe turn of the century, there was a spiriteddebate about the meaning of the increase innon-regular workers (e.g. Social Science JapanJournal 2001, 2002). The participants weresome of those involved in shaping the currentdiscussion about limited regular employment,particularly Sato Hiroki and Osawa Mari. Sato,who has headed several government panels onlabor and lifestyle issues, saw irregular (hiseiki)work as providing an expanded range ofemployment opportunities. Osawa, as shecontinues to do today, argued that these“atypical” forms of employment wereopportunities for exploitation and unequaltreatment.

A television news show presents the conflicting aimsof limited regular employment for labor and capital.For workers: achievement of work-life balance andmore reliable labor environment than non-regularemployment. For companies: ability to hold downwage costs and dismiss workers more easily.

A year l a t e r the j ou rna l pub l i shedcommentaries from two foreign scholars ofJapanese employment. Marcus Rebick (2002)noted that the sort of discrimination pointed tob y O s a w a i s t h e p r o d u c t o f m a r k e tsegmentation originating in both pre-marketand market discrimination, consistingrespectively of barriers to skill acquisition andbarriers to entry. Rebick noted that the

barriers to entry “are located withinoccupations along the lines of employmentstatus, namely whether or not one is a regularworker.” (Rebick 2002, 244) That is, pay andtreatment can differ solely because ofclassification, even if the work performed is thesame.

The second commentary, by Heidi Gottfried,argued that “atypical,” flexible forms ofemployment are the product of a combinationof both employer cost cutting and workerchoices. Regardless of origins, however, shenoted that, “The diversification of employmentalters the social contract.” (Gottfried 2002,246) Non-standard employment puts individualworkers in a weak position against firms; non-regular status holders are defined as externalto moral and legal norms that make employersresponsible for protecting employment.

Twelve years on, as atypical employmentbecomes increasingly common, it is growingmore evident that the view of non-regularemployment as unequal treatment withnegative social consequences was correct. Asnon-regular employment has expanded, GINIand other measures indicate that Japan’s socialinequality has grown. In contradistinction totheir prominence in higher education, womenfind it very difficult to advance in theworkplace. The inability to gain formalmembership as regular workers is taking a tollon the identities and life course trajectories ofthe young. Atypical employment is less a freechoice than a forced choice. Non-regularemployment is also putting a heavy burden onthe welfare system. If Sato’s view had provencorrect, there would be no need for the “variedforms of regular employment” now beingdebated. The question is whether rules forgoverning limited regular employment can bepositive reforms, with outcomes like thoseenvisioned by the labor economists. Or whetherthey will amount to no more that just anothersemantic slight of hand intended to drawattention away from the real trick: changing

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the social common sense in order to permitfurther deregulation of work and laborrelations.

From the views of the various players in thedebate summarized above, it seems clear thatthe status gentei seishain is a way of imposingthe common sense of the capitalist class uponthe workers. That is to say, capital in Japan haslong chafed at the postwar imposition ofimported notions such as equality and workerrights that were explicit in the US-imposedLabor Standards Law of 1947. Reestablishingabsolute employer authority requires themaintenance, indeed, the elaboration ofdifferences between workers. Various forms oflimited regular employment are exactly that:new classifications (mibun) that justifyhierarchical ranking and differential treatment,even when the work performed is the same.

Regular employment means working about 52hours per week on average, roughly the sameas in the early 1960s (Morioka 2013). That thislevel of work is normal for regular employeeshas long been “common sense.” It is also abarrier to equal opportunity because suchhours are incompatible with women’straditional social roles as mothers andcaregivers. Moreover, inter-firm mobility islimited because new hires must generally beginagain at the bottom of the categorical pyramidas newly hired, low-paid employees who lackseniority. Note that, in internationalperspective, Japanese “regular” employment isreally quite “atypical.” The hours andproduction targets (noruma) imposed onunlimited regular employees are notoriouslylong and heavy, particularly in comparison withWestern European nations.14 The greatestcareer success comes from uninterruptedtenure with a single firm.

Manipulation and blurring of conceptual andcategorical boundaries is a key employerstrategy for workplace control. As genteiseishain bridges the gap between regular and

non-regular employment it also obscurescategorical differences. Fu (2012) noted thatone significance of dispatched temporaryworkers was how they cast doubt on the“specialness” of regular workers. Butdispatched workers were still clearly outsidersrather than “members.” Limited regularemployment, however, makes the confusioncomplete because limited and regular (i.e.unlimited) are, in Japanese terms, opposites.Limited regular employment thus mixesconditional and unconditional employment - thelogical outcome of this contradiction is that, inthe final analysis, limited regular employmentis actually non-regular, that is non-permanent,less protected, and therefore not equal tor e g u l a r e m p l o y m e n t . C o n d i t i o n a lunconditionality makes no sense. Semanticconfusion will whittle down by degrees the willof workers to even figure out what is going on.Workers’ heavy loads and long hours imposetheir own constraints on action, and thedifficulties of fighting to change “the system” inJapan are so onerous that workers themselvesfind it easier just to put their heads down andwork on. There is social honor in showinggraceful fortitude in the acceptance of one’ssocial role.

In sum, semantics matters. Japan is sensitive torank and labels more than most places: statusdesignations are the basis for social relationsand language use, which then reproducesstatus distinctions. Rohlen’s famous study of abank (1974) described the accepted model ofemployment. He noted two categories:members (seishain), hired immediately upongraduation, and non-members of various hues.Women were “members,” but not expected tostay. Indeed, quitting was mandatory uponmarriage. Brinton (2011) still describes theemployment system as being segmented intohires who are new grads and others. So themember/non-member divide remainsfundamental to Japan’s division of labor, moreso perhaps than blue-collar, white-collar orother possible divisions.

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Weathers’s (2009) critical review of books onthe non-regular worker issue argues that thescholarly literature on the issue by someimportant academic figures with influentialpolicy positions misses the boat: large-scalesurveys showing that non-regulars are satisfiedwith jobs that often terminate when contractsexpire, or that there are no threats to workerwell-being implicit in the bifurcation orsegmentation of the labor force, are trumpedby observations of what happens in particularworkplaces and by the sorts of issues that comebefore the courts. As Weathers notes,employees’ legal rights are generallysubordinate to employers’ “complete freedomto determine employment conditions.”(Weathers 2009, 147) He says that thejournalist Kobayashi Miki paints a particularlypersuasive portrait of how young people arekept constantly off balance by employer abilityto use regular and non-regular job designationsas sticks and carrots: “Today’s youths face avirtually unregulated labor market in whichemployers have total freedom to determine theconditions of employment, including wagesystems and whether positions are regular ornon-regular, regardless of the work actuallyperformed.” (Weathers 2009, 144) The result isthat non-regular workers overwork to provethey are as worthy of respect as those whomake more and have higher status, and regularworkers overwork to prove they are worthy ofholding onto their positions and perks.

The introduction of limited regular employmentis thus a double-edged sword: “limited” meansdifferent things to employers and to workers.Employers generally have the upper hand indefining what things mean. The enduringJapanese cultural strategy of sacrificing lowerranked members to preserve the authority ofhigher ranked ones that sustain the hierarchyas a whole becomes important here. Limitedregular employment will mean different thingsto people with different social class locations.Working class men and women will probablyaccept i t as an improvement in their

opportunities. Their pay and social status mayrise. They will be enchanted by the “regular”part of the designation and satisfied with the“limits” on work time, transfers, and duties. Itwi l l help some people to have betteremployment and home lives, and some mayeven “step-up” to careers. But most of thosewho want regular employment will see genteias second class – a state of being excluded fromequal respect and the rewards of real regularemployees.

Will non-regular work mean non-regular life?Will banks make home loans to gentei workers?Will men and women find gentei to be goodmarriage material? Will the increased hiring ofgentei workers open up career opportunitiesand a more fluid job market? If not, will theillusion of “regular employment” provideenough cultural capital satisfactions tocompensate for gentei limits? Gentei are atleast fulltime workers and that is a mark ofrespect. But transfers, unlimited duties, longhours, and other demands, including the dutyto show absolute loyalty (accepting payment inproducts when the firm hits hard times,accepting transfer to any part of the enterpriseor a subcontractor as needed) are not part ofthe gentei picture – so just how valued willsuch workers be? Or is Osawa right, thatsegmentation will lead to exploitation onceagain, that gentei status will be a dumpingground for women and others less valued? Willit be another nail in the coffin of Japan’sclassless society myth?

What is clear is that business interests aretaking a long-term view: limited regularemployment may turn out to be a brilliant ployby employers and policy makers to muddy thewaters and create confusion while pushingforward a new normal. The current restrictionson dismissal were imposed by the courts.Legislating from the bench on behalf of socialstability, they made it almost impossible foremployers to exercise the right to terminateworkers at will. Article 16 of the Labor

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Standards Law could thus be changed if thereis a shift in the common sense of society uponwhich the earlier activist judicial rulings werebased.

Limited regular employment blurs the linesbetween regular (core), and irregular(peripheral) employment: as the norm oflimited employment becomes more widespread,so will ideas of limited employer benevolenceand responsibility for worker welfare. Withabout 40 percent of the labor force now insome non-regular category, the decline inbenevolence is already wide and spreading. Aslayoffs and firings become more common,mobility is becoming the common sense,though stability is still the ideal.

Concluding Note

Mr. Abe’s package of structural reforms will bedebated in the Diet this summer. The proposalto establish new work and contract rules willalmost certainly pass. When it is broadlyimplemented, limited regular employment willlikely become an interpretational football in thelong-running war of position between labor andcapital in Japan. Employers today are muchbetter situated to win, to use their growingcontrol of the workplace to further increaselabor market hegemony. The arbitrariness ofJapanese employment categories has long beena hard-to-oppose source of displeasure forworkers, because it also provides the structurewithin which their social identities are formed.Limited regular employment will promise theillusion of regular employment, a business cardsort of status that can disappear at any time. Itwill also weaken the status of regular,unlimited employment by pretending to be thesame sort of employment, and by placingsomewhat lower-paid workers in positions verysimilar to those of regular workers in terms ofduties and responsibilities.

The new division of labor, thus, could have avariety of outcomes for social structure. Itcould further fracture the working class:

regular, limited regular, and non-regular,making labor organizing even more difficultthan it already is. It could give employers yetanother distinction behind which to hidediscrimination against women, thwarting theirattempts to gain equal treatment. It certainlywill help firms reduce wage costs and increaseflexibility to allocate labor as they see fit. Withso much at stake, there will be a lot morejockeying before this contentious issue reachesthe finish line. New forms of employment couldliberate workers from the yoke of the dream ofa career with a single employer. But is thatwhat they want? Japan is often described as aconsensus society, but it is not encouraging forworkers that their voice is so under-represented in these important deliberationsabout the future of social honor and power inJapan. That raises the question of howadvocates for the various points of viewpresented here see workers. Their views areinsights into their premises of social order andtheir vision of a good society. As such, limitedregular employment debate is a window on thebattle for Japan’s soul, which is currently beingplayed out in economic policy, educationreform, international relations, studies ofhistory, and many other fields in addition tolabor deregulation.

Recommended Citation: Scott North, "LimitedRegular Employment and the Reform of Japan'sDivision of Labor", The Asia-Pacific Journal,Vol. 12, Issue 15, No. 1, April 14, 2014.

About the author

Scott North is Professor of Sociology in theSchool of Human Sciences at Osaka University.He is the author of The Work-Family Dilemmasof Japan’s Salarymen, in Men, Wage Work andF a m i l y(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415893763/),edited by Paula McDonald and Emma Jeanes(Routledge, 2012) and other papers on workand family life in Japan.

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•Sachie Mizohata, The Trans-Pacif icPartnership and its Critics: An introduction anda p e t i t i o n(https://apjjf.org/-Sachie-MIZOHATA/3996)

•David H. Slater, The Making of Japan's NewWorking Class: "Freeters" and the ProgressionFrom Middle School to the Labor Market(https://apjjf.org/-David_H_-Slater/3279)

•Emilie Guyonnet, Young Japanese TemporaryWorker s Crea te The i r Own Un ions(https://apjjf.org/-Emilie-Guyonnet/3518)

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Notes

1 Fu (2012, 122) calls haken (dispatchedtemporary workers) “the vanguard of thereorganization of work.” Her analysis pointsout how the presence of even the smallnumbers of haken workers symbolizes theincreasing erosion of meaning of the regular-non-regular division. She also raises questionsabout the impartiality of both governmentstatistics and prominent members of Abe’sCompetitiveness Promotion Commission, whichis unabashed about promoting labor marketreforms.

2 Other designations include: “job-basedregular employment” (ジョッブ方正規雇

用)，”associate employee” (準社員), “limitedperiod regular employment” (有期正規雇用),“geographically limited regular employee” (地域限定正社員), or “limited hours regularemployee” (時間限定正社員).

3 Such sloganeering conveys the flavor ofAbenomics.

4 Debate on a system of dismissal disputeresolution continues. See Tsuru 2014.

5 See Footnote 2.

6 What follows is my paraphrase of theMinpoukyou statement.

7 Symposium on Limited Regular Employment,Kyoto, Japan. 25 August 2013. PanelistsKumazawa Makoto, Wakita Shigeru, andKinoshita Takeo. I am summarizing theirlengthy discussion here.

8 Overtime is regulated by Article 36 of theLabor Standards Law. Capital and labor mustagree on overtime plans which must beapproved by the Labor Standards Offic (LSO).Current guidelines call for a maximum of 45hours of overtime per month or 360 hours peryear. Although in practice and in their filingswith the LSO many firms exceed these limits,the LSO accepts these overtime plans.

9 1. Employers must show need to reduceworkforce (bankruptcy). 2. Must make effortsto avoid layoffs and try to find other posts forworkers within the firm. 3. Selection of workersto be dismissed must be rational (targeteddismissal is prohibited. “Retirement” must beoffered equally to all.) 4. Employers mustexplain to the worker and cooperate with theunion or workers’ representative.

10 Workplace ethnographies mention non-regular staff being expected to show up atcompany sports events on weekends (“Andbring food,” they are instructed), come early towork or stay late to clean up. They are told,

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“You are not really part of our company, butyou should work hard anyway.”

11 Up to 60 hours per month, the overtimepremium is usually 25% of regular hourlysalary. It only goes to 50% above 60 hours permonth.

12 The recent ruling in the case of gender wagediscrimination at Chubu Electric indicates thatcourts may tolerate this level of discriminationas it does not “violate social order.” (Jibu 2014)Osawa (2002, 274) discusses “full-time part-timers” and the Maruko Alarm case, in whichan arbitrary level of 80% of regular wages wasset as the threshold for wage discrimination.The court ruled that “public order and morals”would be violated if the employer paid the full-time part-timers less than 80% of the regulars’wages. The message is that “part-time work[even if full-time] is not a matter of workingfewer hours than a full-timer, but is clearlylinked to an inferior employment status.”

13 The last of these attempts was in the run-upto the election in the summer of 2013. Businessrepresentatives on government panels became

very outspoken about ramming through awhite-collar exemption and the true aims of theKeidanren-led business community becameclear. However, as this was one of the issuesthat brought about the fall of Mr. Abe’s firstgovernment in 2006, political pressure wasbrought to bear and white collar exemption waswithdrawn as a policy goal. Mr. Abe swept to alandslide victory, giving his coalition control ofthe Diet and thus, the possibility of pushingthrough his cherished dream of constitutionalrevision. The white-collar exemption has been apet project of the business class for many yearsand there is every reason to think it will return.

14 Official figures for Japan’s work hours arebased on voluntary reporting by firms to theMHLW. These figures show hours of workdeclining to less than the official target of 1800per annum. This is because the main MHLWsurvey is an average of all workers. Increasedpart-time work, mostly by women, has reducedthe annual average. Surveys of individuals,however, such as the NHK Time Use Survey,show men (aged 20-59) working more than2500 hours per year. (Mouer and Kawanishi2005, Chapter 4).