Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
The annual round of wage negotiations started Wednesday as Keidanren Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura and Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) President Nobuaki Koga met in Tokyo to discuss labor conditions for the year from April.
Aiming for a return to 1997 levels of gross pay, a peak for regular workers, the nation's largest umbrella labor body is poised to seek a 1 percent hike in overall pay in this year's monthlong "shunto" labor-management negotiations.
But a tough battle is expected because Keidanren dismissed the possibility of a pay-scale hike and even suggested that regular wage increases for each worker may be frozen or delayed in its policy report for the coming negotiations released Monday.
