RENGO held the 32nd Central Committee Meeting at a hotel in Miyazaki city on June 28 and 29. At the meeting RENGO endorsed the Spring Struggle Summary 2000.

Raising Wages
(1) Establishing RENGO's Demand Standard
During the discussion of how to establish Spring Struggle principles, some members raised the issue of "whether it is right to show RENGO's unified demands given the wide differences in situations in industry, category or business." RENGO finally decided upon setting its unified demand standard based on an emphasis for demanding "individual-specific wages." With that, it was decided that RENGO should provide some alternatives to make it easier for each industry to utilize the standards and so each affiliate came up with a range for demand standards. This does not mean, however, a decline in RENGO's power and RENGO recognized that it will still need to offer some guideposts for the future.

(2) Contents of the Unified Demand Standard
This year for the first time the Struggle Policy produced target standards and the minimum goal for production workers and office and technical workers in the 30 and 35 year age groups.
The policy also stipulated that "first, it is necessary to secure regular pay increases or equivalent amounts in order to maintain the current wage system. After that, we must demand a more than 1% increase over our base wage for our target level in order to maintain or improve the current standard of living."
Setting standard categories of work showed some degree of progress in that specific work "factors" were added to the standard. On the other hand, since it is difficult to tie everything into one uniform, standard category beyond industry and business, further study and consideration will be required. The unified demand standards that each union would refer to differ by industry. However, the problem of setting effective demand standards—especially whether RENGO should stress target levels for standard categories or the range of increases—still remains unsettled.

(3) Securing Regular Pay Increases (or Equivalent Amounts)
The 2000 Spring Struggle Principle upheld its brand new guideline on activities entitled "achieving regular pay raises (or equivalent amounts) at pre-negotiations."
This was meant to secure a wage scheme prior to base wage raise negotiations even in workplaces with no regular pay raise system by:
a) sorting raise amounts into "amounts corresponding to regular pay raises" and "amounts for base wage raises,"
b) confirming that those amounts correspond to regular pay raises based on the actual situations of each workplace.
However, understanding and its pursuit varied by industry as this was the fist year that such a principle was implemented. Some unions succeeded in their effort, while others could not progress as there was no regular pay increase system in their unions. Some unions uniformly calculated the amount equivalent to regular pay increase as 2%. Moreover, we cannot say that the idea of regular pay increases (or equivalent amounts) has been properly thought out or that it is generally recognized.
Despite these concerns, however, as the general perception of significance of this principle is gaining ground, this year's effort will become a foothold for the future. Further, we must wait the results of the survey for all unions to realize the extent to which we could secure the equivalent amount of actual regular pay increases.

(4) The Wage Standard Ripple Effect and Information Disclosure
Along with a rise in the variety of demand and response methods, it is becoming to care how the leading
standard of wage increase should be expanded to others. In other words, it is becoming more difficult to
establish average wage increases with a single standard at various levels:
such as from major unions to small to mid-sized unions,
from the "individual method" to the "average method,"
from workplaces with unions to unorganized workplaces,
from private to public sectors.
Especially when major unions receive a "no base salary increase" response like this time, there is a strong tendency that the public will take it to mean that there was "no wage increase" at all including regular pay increases. So that it is becoming an important issue to transmit information properly in order not to make negative ripple effects.
It has also become necessary to examine how to spread wage standards through the society in the current situation, that is to say, during the transition to an "individual method (individual specific wage method)" and when the establishment of standard categories diversifies. Even some of those unions that have already switched to the "individual method" are still negotiating pay raises using the "average method." However, they make their "announcements" using the "individual method." We need to redouble our efforts regarding how best to accurately disclose information.

(5) Problems with the "Regular Pay Increase Included" Method and "Polarization."
"The Struggle Principle" presented to the unions who use "the average method"
a)to ascertain the equivalent amount to regular pay increases which maintains the wage curve
b)activities that achieve average wage levels throughout all unions placing great importance on allocation negotiations.
Of course not all the unions were able to conduct sufficient activities, but eventually strong indicators appeared suggesting that results had polarized. That is, even small to mid-sized unions got a relatively high level of settlements in short time where a well-arranged wage system was in place, or where amounts equivalent to the regular pay raise were calculated. On the other hand, we saw that unions had no prepared wage systems and had difficulties in calculating regular pay raises tended to have low levels of settlements over an extended period of time.
A sort of "system divide" clearly emerged which had not surfaced when 3 to 4% of the pay raise standards had been secured.
Finally, demanding or negotiating without separating regular increases from base salary increases, would make maintaining the wage curve more and more difficult and eventually revealed the limits of what conventional demand/negotiations can do.

(6) A General Evaluation of Pay Increase Negotiations
The 2000 Pay Increase Negotiations were disappointing from the point of union members' expectations (improvement of actual income and a decrease in anxiety over earnings) and the social distribution of income. It was an effort in such circumstances, that although the macro-economical situation is supposed to be recovering, the unemployment rate was stayed at high levels, and many unions had severe problems with management and employment.
On the other hand, bonuses did not fall much below last year's levels even with the severe managerial situation, and there is a chance that unions will be able to maintain similar annual income levels compared with last year.
Other elements stood out in this year's pay hike negotiations including zero-wage increase settlements by major unions and changes in unified answers by industry.
Some of the factors behind these phenomena include the rise of globalization in the economy and the influence of the introduction of International Accounting Standards. Some affiliates (industrial federations) point out that this is a sign of a shift toward emphasizing short-term profit and shareholders. If those changes in management's attitude and labor-management relations are firm, we will need radical measures to cope with them.

Shortening Working Hours
The numbers of unions which submitted demands to shorten working hours during the Spring Struggle has decreased in the past couple of years. One reason is that many unions achieved their goal of shortened working hours mainly in the major unions. On the other hand, many other unions have decided not to submit demands as it is hard to work on this problem under the current severe circumstances, and when there is still no consensus among union workers.
However, real working hours are still heavy even when one considers that employees have overtime and do not take annual paid holidays. There are unions where unpaid overtime is common depending on the industry or business. It is now necessary for us to set a new goal that aims at the next stage.

Extending Employment Beyond age 60
Numerous unions conducted negotiations over extending the employment age beyond 60 keeping in mind that by incremental raises in the eligibility age for pension provisions will be enforced from April 2001. Major unions in some affiliates were able to get an employment extension for all the people who desired to work. The unions that could not get a settlement during this year's struggle established a foothold for future negotiations after the fall.
Now it is desirable to firm up those results and steadily extend their benefits in the future to small to mid-sized unions and others.