TOKYO, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Members of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation on Thursday reached an agreement at their meeting to call for a pay-scale increase of about 2 percent and an annual pay rise of 2 percent during upcoming wage negotiations early next year.
The largest labor organization in Japan, known as Rengo, has around 7 million members. It is the seventh consecutive year that Rengo has sought a pay hike of 2 percent.
The agreement matched the goal for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who has promised to achieve economic growth and wealth distribution and is calling for a pay hike of over 3 percent next year at companies seeing their earnings recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Companies agreed to an average 1.78 percent pay hike in wage talks earlier this year in response to a request for a total 4 percent increase.
Tomoko Yoshino, the first female chief of Rengo, said, "We can not say that (wealth) has been distributed appropriately to workers. Labor unions need to proactively ask for investment in people," adding, "I'd like to fix wage gaps between men and women and forms of employment."
However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Keidanren, Japan's biggest business lobby, said that blanket pay hikes are unrealistic as corporate earnings varied among firms and industries.
As the recovery from the pandemic stays uneven, Rengo will aim to "shore up pay in each sector as much as possible," according to its guidelines for the latest wage negotiations.
The confederation will call for a minimum wage of 1,150 yen (10 U.S. dollars) an hour, rising 50 yen from this year.
Wage negotiations will culminate in March when major companies decide how to respond to requests from their labor unions. Enditem
