Uptick in Japan’s Union Members Mirrors U.S. Trend

[Omaha Steve]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5351/uptick_in_japans_union_members_mirrors_u.s._trend/

Wednesday December 23 10:16 am

By Akito Yoshikane

Despite the financial downturn in Japan, the unionization rate in the world’s second largest economy actually rose for the first time since 1975, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The estimated percentage of union members among all employees for 2009 was 18.5 percent, up 0.4 percent from last year. While the increase is marginal, it marks the first time in 34 years in which union membership showed consecutive yearly growth.

The findings parallel historical and recent labor trends in the U.S. Like other industrialized nations, union density in Japan has been declining in the postwar era. In Japan, the number of workers joining unions peaked in 1949 at 55.8 percent, steadily declining over the last few decades to less than 20 percent in 2003. Similarly, the percentage of U.S. employed workers in unions hit its zenith in 1954 at 28.3 percent, according to a report by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. By 2003, just 11.5 percent of employed workers were union members.

The recent uptick in Japan also mirrors U.S. statistics. Over the past two years, the U.S. unionization rate increased from 12 percent to 12.4 percent, according to a report by UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

“The loss of so many private sector jobs may have contributed to the relative increase in unionized workers, since public sector jobs have higher rates of unionization than does private sector employment,” the report said.

Despite the rising rate of union members, the details explain why the news isn't exactly positive. As job losses in the U.S. are an unfortunate corollary of rising union ranks, in Japan, a tighter labor market and growth of irregular workers contributed to the increase in numbers. Unemployment rose to a postwar high of 5.7 percent in July, as more jobs were lost and employers began looking for temporary workers amid the recession, a phenomenon not far from recent hiring practices in the U.S.

FULL story at link.