Wage gains in Japan will be slow in coming

Subject Annual wage negotiations in Japan. Significance Japanese companies are preparing for their late January labour negotiations that will culminate with the annual 'spring wage offensive' (shunto) from March to June. Company unions, labour federations and employers’ organisations join in this coordination effort to set wages for the following year. For the past four years, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Keidanren business federation have called for larger wage increases to stimulate economic demand. Impacts Company profits, rising until the last two quarters, will be the driving factor in wage gains. A tighter labour market will eventually push up wages. The labour market remains weak when measured by the number of available hours of work, so wages will rise slowly.

From Ludlow to Chattanooga and beyond

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of employee representation systems in the USA from the Ludlow Massacre of 1914 up to the events in 2015 at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The study begins with the strike at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation which led to the deaths of several women and children. In the aftermath of Ludlow, John D. Rockefeller, Jr, visited the mines in 1915 and persuaded workers that an internal employee representation plan would serve their interests better than an outside trade union. Rockefeller’s influence shaped American industrial relations until the passage of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act in 1935, when company unions were outlawed. The ongoing decline of unions and collective bargaining has prompted academic speculation that a return to internal workplace committees might lead to a rejuvenated labor movement in the USA. Design/methodology/approach The study uses both archival materials and secondary sources to construct a narrative of one important element of industrial relations. It explains Wagner’s ban on company unions as a component of his economic agenda. Company unions provided a voice for a firm’s workers, but Wagner believed they were powerless to redistribute corporate wealth. The decline of American unions is so profound that they no longer serve an economic role in our capitalist system, but workers’ voice in the workplace remains an important consideration. Findings The key finding of this paper is that employee representation plans are not merely an industrial relations anachronism but continue to be relevant to today’s workplace. The paper compares an influential representation plan developed in 1914 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr, to current schemes of representation and argues that labor law should be modified to permit modern versions of the older “company unions”. Researchlimitations/implications Works councils play a crucial role in European labor relations, and they could do so in America if labor laws were modified to permit it. An exposition of the deep historical context of representation helps to legitimate the concept. Future research into specific cases, including an international perspective, would add to an understanding of the benefits and costs of representation. Originality/value The originality of this paper is its combination of a historical event and a contemporary case study that brings together a theme present in managerial history for over a century. By emphasizing the aims of Rockefeller, Jr. in 1914 and the objectives of the Volkswagen Company in 2014 in establishing a participatory workplace, we gain a long-term framework through which to evaluate a particular managerial technique. The paper also suggests ways to bring our labor laws into conformance with the idea of employee representation.

From Exit to Voice in Shopfloor Governance: The Case of Company Unions

The company union movement in the United States during the 1920s cannot be understood entirely in terms of employers' efforts either to block independent unionization or to foster greater worker loyalty through the paternalistic provisions of “welfare capitalism.” Company unions were institutional mechanisms by which workers voiced their concerns about shopfloor conditions to employers instead of exiting the firm. Evidence suggests that company unions led to both enhanced shopfloor productivity and safety, and were thus mutually beneficial for labor and management. Interestingly, however, the process by which they emerged was filled with conflict, historical contingency, and unintended consequences. Company unions were neither an inevitable nor even an intentional replacement for voluntary quits as a mechanism for addressing workers' shopfloor discontent.