Industrial Relations in Japan: The Peripheral Sector

by Norma Chalmers

Overview

The conventional picture of industry and industrial relations in Japan is of a number of very large firms providing extremely attractive working conditions for their happy and contented workforce. Norma Chalmers shows that there is in fact another, very different side to the picture, which occurs in the the peripheral sector. Here, conditions are often poor, wages very low and continuity of employment virtually non-existent. There are many small firms where the effectiveness of worker organisation and bargaining declines as the firm's size and proximity to the industrial centre decrease. Moreover, as Chalmers shows, the peripheral sector is very large, and the conventional picture of the model workforce should probably be confined to a few flagship companies. The book argues that the model nature of the large firms may stem in part from the fact that they are able to off-load problems onto smaller firms who produce the components necessary for the large firm sector at disadvantageous subcontract terms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134990320
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/14/2006
Series:	ISSN
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Norma Chalmers

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Perspectives of Industrial Relations in Japan: In Search of the Peripheral Workforce 2. Japan's Peripheral Workers: A Profile of the Small and Medium Sector 3. Japan's Peripheral Workers: A Profile of Non-Regular Labour 4. Japan's Sub-Contract Workers and Contract Labour 5. Case Studies 6. Japan's Peripheral Workers 7. Communication and Conflict