ILO: Japan needs to correct gender wage gap

BY MIEKO TAKENOBU

ASAHI SHIMBUN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Japan's widening wage gap between men and women, a longtime source of frustration and anger among working women, is now the target of growing international criticism.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) earlier this year called on Tokyo to take legal steps to close the gender pay gap.

ILO data shows things are getting worse, not better.

The ILO said the gap between male and female full-time workers widened from 31.2 percent in 2004 to 32.9 percent in 2006.

In other words, in 2006 women earned 67.1 yen for every 100 yen men were paid on average.

The ILO report was followed in April by an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report expressing concern for Japan's "increasing dualism," evidenced by a recent sharp rise in nonregular workers.

Most nonregular, part-time workers employed in Japan are women. Such workers are paid much less than full-timers.

According to the ILO, the root of the problem stems from ambiguous Article 4 of the Labor Standards Law.

Article 4 "prohibits gender discrimination in remuneration."

The article does not fully reflect the principles in the ILO's Convention No. 100 (adopted in 1951), which supports "equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value."

The Japanese government, however, says "Article 4 is sufficient." It ratified the ILO Convention in 1967 based on Article 4.

Masako Fujisawa, 65, of Nagoya, is one woman who doesn't think Article 4 is sufficient. She lost her wage discrimination suit at the Nagoya District Court in 2004.

"If the article had a clear provision that states 'equal remuneration for work of equal value,' I might have won," she says.

In 1995, Fujisawa filed the lawsuit against her employer, steel and machinery trading firm Okaya & Co., together with another female worker six years her junior.

The two women argued the company's system of assigning men to the higher-pay career-track course and women to lower-pay clerical jobs in effect constituted wage discrimination by gender.

The district court rejected Fujisawa's claim, but it awarded the younger woman 5.5 million yen in compensation.

That was because treating men and women differently in job assignments, career courses and promotions was not banned until the revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law took effect in 1999.

Fujisawa retired before 1999 and thus was not covered by the law, it said. The district court took no stand concerning Article 4 of the Labor Standards Law.

Both sides appealed, and the two women reached a settlement at a high court in 2006 under which Okaya paid an undisclosed sum to both women.

But Fujisawa has not stopped challenging the validity of Japan's labor laws. She went to the ILO head office in Geneva last fall to discuss the issue.

Japan, which has ratified the ILO Convention No. 100, should guarantee equal pay for work of equal value, she told ILO officials.

Mami Nakano, a lawyer well versed in pay inequality issues, agrees the article does not clearly spell out the principle.

"It's not clear how Article 4 can be used to ensure equal pay for work of equal value," Nakano says. "The article is not easy to use in lawsuits because ways to assess the 'value' (of work) are not well established, either."

In January, for the first time, Article 4 was applied in a ruling on a gender discrimination case filed over career-track and noncareer-track assignments.

The Tokyo High Court ordered trading company Kanematsu Corp. to pay 72.57 million yen to four of six plaintiffs in wage gaps and in compensation for its unfair pay practices.

According to the ruling, the four noncareer-track women had performed work comparable to that of men on a highly paid career track, and should be awarded equal pay under Article 4 of the law.

But at the same time, the court rejected claims by the two others on grounds they were engaged in secretarial work "that did not require such expertise."

The plaintiffs said later they were angry their case failed to correct the "prejudice" that secretarial duties are simple, unskilled work, blaming a lack of "objective criteria."

Reflecting the growing frustration among Japanese women workers, the ILO's Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations on Feb. 28 issued a report to Japan.

In the report, the committee asked "the (Japanese) government to take steps to amend the legislation to provide for the principle of equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value."

The panel also asked Japan to report on steps it has taken to establish objective criteria, such as skills and responsibilities, to enable fair comparison and assessment of the value of the work performed.

The committee in fact made a similar report last year, noting that Article 4 of the Labor Standards Law does not fully reflect the principle of the ILO Convention No. 100.

The government responded only that the article was sufficient. Following this year's ILO recommendation, the labor ministry said Japan's position "has not changed."

The ILO's recommendations are not binding.

Meanwhile, the OECD on April 7 released its Economic Survey of Japan 2008 report, in which it expressed concern over "a sharp rise in labor market dualism, with the share of nonregular workers rising from 20 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2007."

Noting that the average hourly pay for part-time employees is only 40 percent of that of regular workers, the report said there are "also serious equity problems, given that the difference in productivity between regular and nonregular workers is much smaller than the wage gap."

It further said that since more than two-thirds of nonregular workers are women, reversing the dualism trend would encourage more women to work.

To encourage more women to join the labor force, the report says Japan needs improved conditions for nonregular workers, better child-care, tax system revisions and better work-life balance.

Masumi Mori, a professor of labor and gender issues at Showa Women's University, noted that Japan's failure to guarantee equal pay for equal work has discouraged women and young people from joining the work force.

Japan should clearly enshrine the principle in law and set objective criteria for assessing work value so it can be implemented as soon as possible, she said.(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)