Wage cuts for national public servants under a special law recently enacted will have repercussions in various areas. The law, jointly written by lawmakers of the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, was enacted by the Upper House on Feb. 29. The wages will be cut by an average 7.8 percent for two years — in fiscal 2012 and 2013.
They will also be cut by an additional 0.23 percent on average retroactively from April 2011 — a rate adopted in accordance with the National Personnel Authorities' recommendation made in September 2011. The wage cuts will save some ¥580 billion during the two-year period and the savings will be used for the March 11, 2011, disasters reconstruction.
The law means that the government will cut the wages much deeper than called for by the NPA. It is certain that a labor union of national public servants will file a lawsuit, arguing that the wage cuts violate the Constitution. As public servants serve all of the people, they are deprived of the right to carry out a strike and to conclude an agreement with their management on wages and other conditions. The Supreme Court has accepted this condition on the grounds that the NPA's recommendation for national public servants' wage levels serves as a compensatory measure for their lack of basic labor rights. The lawsuit will force the judiciary to show its legal position on the deeper wage cuts.