List of Issues:

1. Wage Differential
   
   

   How will the government correct the gender disparity in wages whereby women who are regularly employed receive about 60% of the salary that men receive, and when non-regular women workers are added the average salary level falls to approximately half that of men. How will the government regulate indirect discrimination that occurs by the increase in female non-regular workers?
   
   

2. Revised Labor Standards Law
   
   

   The Revised Labor Standards Law, to be enforced in April 1999, repeals current protective provisions for women concerning work hours. Consequently, an aggravation of labor conditions for women (increases in overtime and holiday work and assignments to night work), and a shift of female labor from regular to non-regular employment are foreseeable. How will the government implement gender-common regulations to limit annual work hours, as it has publicly pledged to realize, to 1,800 hours or less? Are there any plans to take legal measures on work hours and night work, holidays, and reinstatement of labor conditions for women who have transferred to non-regular employment in order to fulfill family responsibilities, so that both male and female workers who have family responsibilities can work and be healthy?

Background:

1. Female employees account for 39.2% of the total employees (Labor Force Survey, Statistics Bureau, the Management and Coordination Agency, 1996). The average wage of women under regular employment is only 60.4% that of men (The Basic Statistical Survey on Wage Structure, Ministry of Labor, 1996). Among all employees, including those under non-regular employment such as part-time and temporary workers, the number decreases to 50.9% (The 49th Labor Statistics Annual, Policy Research Department to the Minister of Labor, 1996). Wage disparity between men and women has been accelerated since the enforcement in 1986 of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law.
   
   Despite the fact that the Committee, in its review of the 3rd Periodic Report by the Japanese government, stated that, "the Committee expresses concern at ... discriminatory practices that appear to persist in Japan against women, with regard to remuneration in employment", the present Government Report does not refer to wage disparity at all.
   
   Women are discriminated against both in recruitment and promotion. Female students who seek employment are discriminated against when obtaining information from companies. Ostensibly, they are given equal opportunities, but the result of the recruitment is discriminatory. While the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was revised in 1997, to be enforced from April 1999, it merely obligates employers to provide equal opportunity for women. The Revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law has new provisions on positive actions for female workers. However, it merely stipulates that the government can assist positive actions taken by employers, but they are not mandatory.
   
   With the enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in 1986, major finance, insurance and other companies introduced all at once a new system of personnel management, called "course management." This system separates employees into two groups, "depending on their ability, desire, and willingness." Sogo-shoku (the complete course: a career position) are assigned important positions with transfers of offices or to other branches. Ippan-shoku (general course: a non-career position) are offered clerk jobs without transfer of to other branches. Wages, promotion and job training are provided separately according to the course. In practice, 99% of male workers are in the complete course while more than 90% of female workers are assigned to the general course (Report of the Research Group concerning the Course Employment and Management, Women's Vocational Foundation.) Women in the general course are not promoted and their wages barely increase despite their working for a period of many years. Gender disparity in wages for regular employment has enlarged between 1985, the year the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was promulgated, and 1995. In the former, women's wages were 54.4% of men, while in the latter the number dropped to 40.8% (Basic Statistical Survey on Wage Structure, Ministry of Labor). Furthermore, major companies with 1,000 employees or over have, one after another, begun to suspend new recruitment of general course workers, namely women, or to alternate female labor to non-regular employment by transferring female workers of in the general course to subsidiary companies and accepting them back as temporary workers from the subsidiary companies.
   
   The difference in the course or the form of employment is only a nominal reason, but in substance women's wages are checked because of their gender. It is indirect discrimination and should be prohibited.
   
   
2. The Revised Labor Standard Law, to be enforced in April 1999, repeals current protective provisions for women concerning work hours. Namely, the principles of the current regulation for female workers that limits their overtime or holiday work to within 6 hours a week or 150 hours a year, and that prohibits their night work, are to be entirely abolished. As a consequence it is foreseeable that female workers' overtime and holiday work will increase and that they will be assigned to night work. While the Revised Child Care Leave Law has new provisions to allow exemption from night work upon request by workers who meet conditions as those who have responsibility for child care, it does not stipulate that such employees have the right to the reduction of work hours or the right to refuse extra work.
   
   Because of this revision it is foreseeable that female workers, who have family responsibilities and are not capable of longer work hours or irregular work-shifts, will have no choice but to transfer to non-regular employment.
   
   The average annual work hours of the Japanese are 2,041 hours, excluding part-timers (Monthly Labor Statistical Survey, Ministry of Labor, 1995). While the average time that the wives of double income households spend on household chores, including child care and care for the elderly, is 4 hours and 17 minutes, the average time that their husbands spend on household chores is only 19 minutes (Basic Survey on Social Life, Management and Coordination Agency, 1991). If the protective provisions for female workers are abolished while leaving male workers to work long hours with little participation in taking care of household responsibilities, women will no longer be capable of working, but will be excluded from regular employment.
   
   The Japanese government has publicly pledged that it will limit annual work hours to 1,800 hours or less. To achieve this objective, along with gender-common regulations on work hours, creating male workers' awareness of their family responsibilities is indispensable to correcting gender discrimination in employment. Based on the Convention concerning Equal Opportunities and Equal Treatment for Men and Women Workers: Workers with Family Responsibilities (ILO Convention 156), the Japanese government should take legal measures to guarantee that workers who shoulder family responsibilities be absolved of extra work or irregular work-shifts, to reduce prescribed work hours, and to guarantee the right to holidays and reinstatement to regular employment from non-regular employment.