Labour unions at major Japanese automakers began annual spring wage negotiations by submitting low-key wage demands and dropping any pay-scale hikes.
As the yen’s historic strength bites into profits in the export-oriented sector, unions are giving priority to protecting annual seniority-based automatic pay hikes and employment without seeking pay-scale increases, while the Japan Business Federation has already indicated that automatic pay-scale hikes could be frozen, Kyodo News reported.
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Their bonus demands were mixed. Unions at Toyota and Honda lowered their demands from the previous year while the Mitsubishi Motors union increased its demand in view of the automaker’s faster recovery from the March 2011 disasters.
The Toyota union requested an average annual bonus of JPY1.78m comprising five months’ wages plus JPY30,000. But a senior company official said it would be difficult for the automaker to accept this.
Unions at Fuji Heavy Industries [Subaru] and Nissan Motor left their bonus requests unchanged from the previous year.
