Has Business Sectors Wage Cut Policy Changed?
Nippon Keidanren’s position on the wage issue has three major problems. One is that it is trying to cut wages as much as possible. At individual enterprises Some media have reported that in the 2005 position paper Nippon Keidanren has begun to approve a wage increase, reversing its 2004 policy that called for holding down wages. The 2005 position paper includes descriptions that can be taken as Keidanren’s acceptance of pay raise. It stated that “individual companies are free to decide to raise their wage levels according to labor-management agreement” and that “it would be necessary for companies that have improved business performance to give workers rewards for their efforts.” This implies that how absurd it is for large companies to pursue a policy of cutting workers’ wages while reporting record profits and paying biggest ever dividends to shareholders. However, business leaders certainly have not given up their policy of holding down workers’ wages. The position paper points out
