August 15, 2000

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

The National Personnel Authority made a recommendation to the National Assembly to increase family allowance and to reduce the bonus by 0.2 months for national public servants (white-collar workers).

The recommendation will revise a part of the family allowance, postpone a raise of salary and reduce bonus for the second year, reflecting public situation.

With this recommendation it is considered that the National Personnel Authority maintained its recommending function as a decision-making body for wages and working conditions, but with difficulty. A postponement of salary increase was an exceptional case and it will come into question when we consider about the impact on small-medium size and local enterprises in which wages are revised based on the wages of national public servants.

Whether this recommendation by the National Personnel Authority would be enforced or not is unpredictable due to the strict position of the government regarding the wages of national public servants. Therefore, we cannot lower our guard.

A scheme of recommendation by the National Personnel Authority has become firmly established as a measure for compensation and basic labour rights. However, if the recommendation will not be enforced by any chance, the scheme of recommendation by the National Personnel Authority itself would be questioned and this would have a great impact on society as a whole from the point of industrial democracy and decision-making procedure between labour and management.

From this standpoint, RENGO will request the maintenance of the scheme of recommendation by the National Personnel Authority and that it is respected, and such recommendations are enforced as soon as possible.