Fujitsu Ltd.'s company Web site is being flooded with angry e-mails from unhappy workers, especially young people.
"The responsibility for not meeting the budget is being shifted only on to (rank-and-file) employees," said one letter. The author is referring to performance-based pay and promotion that Fujitsu has introduced with dismal results.
The largest domestic computer maker became the first company in the nation to introduce a performance-based wage system in 1998, and Fujitsu staff didn't like it.
In 2004, Fujitsu began an evaluation promotion system. But there continues to be wide dissatisfaction among staff.
Many Fujitsu workers have been rebelling against management and it is hurting the company's performance.
Other companies are looking at Fujitsu's problems and trying to avoid them. However, analysts have said they still are groping around in the dark for ways to get away from the seniority-based pay system successfully.
According to a survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, manufacturers with more than 1,000 employees that introduced performance-based systems accounted for 79 percent in 2001, an 11 percent rise since 1996. Hitachi Ltd. and Canon Inc. are two companies since 2000 that have abolished their seniority-based salary systems.
Employee dissatisfaction can be understood by looking at a recent survey by the labor ministry and several organizations that shows there is a wide range of salaries for workers in the same age group, and the pay for people in their 50s is about 70 percent less than what was once paid to workers in their age group.
Senior employees are not the only unhappy ones -- many new employees are concerned that they might not be able to survive this new promotion track, according to labor analysts.