SNA (Tokyo) — Have you ever heard of the traditional Japanese labor campaign called shunto? The word is short for shunki toso (spring struggle) and refers to labor unions’ annual campaign to fight for across-the-board pay hikes for their members. Traditionally, shunto was only for full-time regular workers, but this year unions are coming together to expand this custom to include workers on non-standard, irregular, casual, and contingent contracts.

Unions negotiate with leading firms in each major industry, pushing them to propose a wage hike. This proposal determines the wage hike “market” in Japan for the year, influencing negotiations at other firms in the industry. This whole process is referred to as shunto.

Once upon a time, shunto and the resulting wage hike market was used as a sort of social benchmark. It was usually honored by major corporations and smaller businesses alike. Today, sadly, few workers expect much from shunto. With union density floundering at around 17%, a large majority of workers feel they have no connection to labor unions.

With increasingly severe inflation, however, we hear more debate about the need for salary increases. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called on employers to “realize pay hikes that exceed the rate of inflation.” Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) Chairman Masakazu Tokura said, “We are asking our member corporations to hike wages as much or more than the increase in consumer prices. This is now the duty of corporations.”

But do mere requests from the head of state and the chief of Japan’s largest business federation carry much weight? When it comes to contingent workers, do such requests carry any weight at all? Are such wage hikes for part-timers, fixed-term workers, contract workers, freelancers, and day laborers even possible these days?

They start from a much weaker bargaining position due to the precarious nature of their employment. It’s far easier to end the employment of a worker on a zero-hour (no monthly guaranteed pay) contract by simply not renewing their contract or by reducing their workload. A full-time, permanent employee with a monthly guaranteed salary enjoys job security and (usually) higher pay, even when calculated at an hourly rate.

Historically, these kinds of salary hike requests from the government and business leaders have impacted just a few large businesses. Overall wages in Japan remain stuck in the past, and wage hikes for the contingent (hiseiki) workers, who make up nearly 40% of the overall workforce, are little more than a distant dream.

But four labor unions (including my own) aim to change that. Tozen Union, General Support Union, Tokyo Youth Union, and National Union of General Workers Tokyo Tobu recently launched the Hiseiki Shunto 2023 Steering Committee to fight for higher pay for all contingent workers throughout Japan. The alliance recently resolved to demand all such employers provide a 10% raise.

This might seem ambitious, but note that the average hourly pay of hiseiki workers today is ¥1,103 (US$8.13). This means that, even if they realize a 10% hike, they will still earn just ¥1,213 (US$8.94) per hour, hardly enough for a life of luxury.

The Hiseiki Shunto 2023 Steering Committee also decided to go on strike against any employer who refuses the 10% hike demand. We plan to enter into a legal strike at seven major corporations during the week of March 9 through March 18, including a restaurant, a juku cram school, a language school, and a call center.

We want to move away from just waiting for the government to ask nicely and return to the traditional normal roles that labor unions should be playing within society and the overall economy–demanding, negotiating, fighting, and finally compromising to sign collective bargaining agreements.

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