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JSD'S SAKURADA BATS FOR UNION ROLE IN IMPLEMENTING PRODUCTIVITY-ENHANCING MEASURES The School for Labor and Industrial Relations of the University of the Philippines (UP-SOLAIR) invited Bro. Sakurade Takaaki, President of the UNI Liaison Council of Japan (UNI-LCJ) to give a lecture last 14 May 2008 on the “Japanese Commerce Sector and its Challenges of Improving Productivity in the Service Industries”. The lecture-forum was attended by over a hundred undergraduate and graduate students of UP-SOLAIR, industrial relations practitioners and union leaders including leaders of the UNI Philippine Liaison Council UNI-PLC). Bro. Sakurada is President of the 180,000-strong Japan Federation of Service and Distributive Workers Unions (JSD), one of the biggest UNI affiliate in the Commerce Sector. Bro. Sakurada outlined the challenges facing service sector unions in Japan. From 2001 to 2007, the proportion of non-regular workers to the total employed workers in the commerce sector jumped from 18.5% to 35.5% as Japanese companies tried to cut cost by hiring more and more non-regular workers. Though such move increased profitability, it also led to an increase in decent work deficits since non-regular workers are paid less, enjoy less benefits, work longer hours, and have no access to training and company information. Moreover, the increase in the number of non-regular workers also resulted in declining union density. In response, the Japanese labour center, Rengo, constituted, during the 2006 spring negotiations, the “Joint Struggle Committee for Part-time Workers” with the aim of eliminating discriminatory treatment arising from being a part-timer, and gaining equal treatment for part-time workers through union negotiation. In October 2007 the Rengo established the Center for Non-regular Workers whose objectives are to increase minimum wage, reduce working hours, raise overtime pay and strengthen the organizing drive for non-regular workers. Bro. Sakurada, then, discussed the challenges facing the commerce sector in Japan. Japan's population is decreasing; income gap is widening. The result is a shrinking consumer base. Moreover, Japanese services are underproductive due to belated investment in technology and intangible assets, delay in standardization of the service process, belated response to globalization, slow adoption of systematic human resource development, smallness of many retail enterprises, and the weakened Japanese economy. In response, the industry inaugurated a program called SPRING (Service Productivity & Innovation for Growth) which is targeted at popularizing a “scientific and engineered approach” to service industry, improving the service process, developing a customer satisfaction index (CSI), and improving human resource development But in pursuing efficiency, Bro. Sakurada stressed that Japanese retailers should not merely focus on squeezing out profits by cutting sales administrative expenses and labor cost. Doing so will only lead to the deteriorating of service. Since the retail industry is a labor-intensive industry, increasing efficiency should also focus on human capital optimization. Moreover, improving productivity should be a joint effort of labor and management and it should cover not only basic area in working conditions such as wages and working hours, but also areas which is believed to belong solely to management. Putting their heads together, labor and management can devise ways to boost profits of the company without neglecting labor's fair share. He, then, presented several cases studies. Among the more innovative productivity-increasing measures were: (1) the Labor Scheduling Program (2) introduction of RFID (3) industry-university cooperation at human resource development, (4) a re-hiring system for retirees in order to utilize their valuable experiences, (5) measures at achieving balanced treatment for part-time workers, (6) positive action to increase the number of women in higher corporate positions, and (7) shortening store hours to improve efficiency and productivity. The foregoing illustrates JSD's approach to encouraging management to take measures to increase productivity without sacrificing the welfare of workers both regular and non-regular and without sacrificing the quality of service. Bro. Sakurada also outlined JSD's at community-building program to address the widening gap among regions in Japan. These community-building efforts are being undertaken in cooperation with municipal governments, shop owners, civic groups, NGOs, Rengo's local federations and colleges in order to assist in revitalizing a community's economic life thus reducing the income gap among regions. Overall, those who attended Bro. Sakurada's lecture found it an enriching experience and said that many of the measures presented are applicable to Philippine setting. Trade unionists said that Bro. Sakurada's case studies illustrating union involvement in increasing productivity while enhancing decent work as a useful negotiation tool.