Japan’s Rengo a Model for Unity, Strength

Few Americans have ever heard of Rengo, but it’s a Japanese labor organization worth considerable attention.

Rengo, created just last November, may well have a major political and economic impact on Japan and therefore, indirectly, on the U.S. economy.

It was formed by merging the bulk of the nation’s four large labor federations that often fought one another over political, ideological and economic issues.

The dramatic move toward labor unity was designed to get more political clout for unions, overhaul the way they negotiate contracts, raise the living standard of their members and win new members. Union membership in Japan has plummeted from a peak of 55% of the work force in the late 1950s to only 27% today, a record low.

Creation of the 5.5-million-member Rengo, now Japan’s largest labor organization, was the most significant restructuring of unions there since the end of World War II, when the American occupation forces established democratic unions to help foster political democracy.

Rengo is comparable in some ways to the AFL-CIO, which was formed in 1955 by a merger of the conservative American Federation of Labor and the more liberal Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The reasons for the Japanese unions to unify their divided ranks are clear and are generally similar to the reasons the AFL-CIO was established. Bringing the two American labor organizations together probably staved off further losses in union strength, although U.S. unions are much weaker than they once were.

The motives behind the drive for unity in Japanese unions:

* Lack of political influence.

The Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s conservative party, has held power for 33 years despite the splintered efforts of unions and the four main opposition parties, each of which is supported by different segments of organized labor. By uniting their political forces, the unions can encourage an alliance of the four opposition parties to replace the firmly entrenched Liberal Democrats.

* Union members’ relatively low standard of living.

Japan has the world’s highest per-capita income, when calculated in dollars, but the living standard of Japanese workers is more than 40% below the level of their American counterparts. And this is true even though manufacturing labor costs in the United States and Japan are about equal, largely because of the 45% appreciation of the yen since 1985.

* The hard times Japanese unions often have at the bargaining table. Separate unions usually negotiate contracts with individual companies or government units, and these “company,” or “enterprise,” unions have had little success in negotiations in recent years.

Japanese unions do have what they euphemistically call their annual “spring struggle” during which they demand better wages and benefits. But the struggle is often more of a ritual dance. There is little strife, and workers rarely go on strike. This spring there may be little or no strife, but Rengo is trying to coordinate bargaining on a national scale.

It is pushing for a meaningful cut in Japan’s standard 48-hour work week, more paid holidays and vacations, lower taxes for workers, better housing, help to cope with exorbitant land prices and improved medical care.

Since many of these goals cannot be won at the bargaining table, pro-worker laws must be enacted and that can be done only if the unions can strengthen their now-flabby political muscle.

Rengo also wants more job security for members of its affiliated unions and government help to stop the steady increase in the number of part-time workers.

The much publicized idea that Japanese workers have “lifetime jobs” is deceptive because fewer than 30% of the workers have such job protection. Even more discouraging, as Japanese companies squeeze profits to cope with the lower value of the dollar, those who once thought they had lifetime jobs--mostly men--can no longer be sure of their future.

Unions last year negotiated wage hikes averaging only 3.5%, an all-time low, and this year wage increases have been given a far lower priority than job security.

Wages will not be increased enough to meet the needs of the average worker. All prices are high, and imported goods often cost far more in Japan than abroad. Even Japanese-made products can frequently be bought more cheaply abroad than in Japan itself.

Rengo’s gains would be sure to help U.S. industries that are in competition with the Japanese. Manufacturing labor costs in Japan and the United States are about the same, but the Japanese have an average 48-hour workweek, which means they still have a competitive advantage. If the new Japanese labor federation achieves its goal of a shorter workweek, that advantage would be removed.

In any case, unions of widely varied political leanings, from right-wing to moderately left, have joined Rengo and more are expected to join soon.

But militant left-wing unionists worry that Rengo may strengthen the hand of anti-union politicians and corporations by moderating the unions’ actions and seeking more cooperation with management than ever before--hardly goals for militants.

Some Rengo affiliates are taking symbolic steps to enhance their image as moderates, not radicals.

Five years ago, for example, the union at giant Pioneer Electronic Corp. replaced its traditional red flag with a blue and green one. Similar symbolic changes are being adopted by other Rengo affiliates.

The newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported that the union at Matsushita Electric Industrial asked its 85,000 members to make proposals for a new union symbol. The winner: a blue and white heart-shaped face grinning cheerfully.

Some union officials are said to be looking for a suitable euphemism for the term “labor union,” which they fear will alienate white-collar workers.

Several unions are offering highly discounted brand-name products and 20% discounts at a network of hotels across Japan in an attempt to recruit members for whom the offer of traditional unionism doesn’t succeed.

The fears of militants may be justified--Rengo’s new, more moderate-than-ever approach to unionism may only hasten the decline of unions there.

But certainly that economic juggernaut, Japan Inc., ought to be able to provide its workers with more than 40% of the living standard that American workers have. For that to happen, something is needed to stop the steep decline in union membership and economic and political influence, and perhaps Rengo has found the answer.

Marine Engineers, Maritime Union Merge

Two more AFL-CIO affiliated unions merged last week, leaving just 89 separate unions in the nation’s only labor federation. There were 141 unions in the federation when it was created in 1955 by a merger of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labor.

The latest merger combined the Marine Engineers Beneficial Assn., which has had only ship officers as members since it was founded 113 years ago, with the National Maritime Union, which is composed of lower-ranking crew members.

Gene DeFries, MEBA president, said the merger “will increase our clout at the bargaining table” and the organizations’ legislative and political influence.

The national AFL-CIO has long encouraged union mergers as a means of increasing labor’s strength and of dealing with the wave of corporate mergers that has swept the country in recent years.

A good example of the problem that individual unions are encountering as they face merged corporations is seen at General Electric and the National Broadcasting Co. Many NBC employees are represented by the National Assn. of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians, while many GE workers are in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

When GE took over NBC in 1986, the company was in a position to use the economic power of its widely diversified operations to combat unions at NBC--and vice versa. So now formal talks have started aimed at uniting the IBEW and NABET to at least partially match the strength of GE-NBC.

Union mergers, unlike corporate ones, are not accompanied by the thousands of jobs and the concentration of more and more economic power in fewer and fewer hands.

And, as AFL-CIO spokesman Rex Hardesty puts it, “Union mergers don’t involve golden parachutes, poison pills, corporate raiders or those scorched-earth strategies that leave behind closed factories and jobless workers.”