Japanese refuse to work shorter hours

Press, 26 April 1979, Page 20

Japanese refuse to work shorter hours

By

ROBERT WHYMANT

in Tokyo for the ‘‘Guardian,” London

Official pleas to Japanese workers to work less hard, for the sake of the country, have fallen on deaf ears again. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (M.1.T.1.) last month called for the introduction of the five-day working week, arguing it was needed to conserve energy. The proposal had the backing of the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister, Mr Masayoshi Ohira, for another reason: it was seen as a chance to appease foreign criticism that Japanese have an unfair advantage in export markets because they work harder. All the evidence so far suggests that this latest campaign to reduce working hours — pushed by a conservative Government, not by trade unions — will flounder as previous attempts have done. Only 10 per cent of companies have switched to the two-day week-end after years of Government persuasion, banks are open on Saturday morning, and in most factories and in Government and private offices workers put in at least half a day on Saturday. What is surprising is that workers are almost as reluctant to give up this privilege as bosses are to withhold it. The Labour Ministry says that employees are averse to part-time workers who might have to be hired if the work

week is shortened, fearing this would upset the sense of community in the factory or office, affect the viability of the company, and — more tangibly — might reduce the ritual bonuses. But more fundamentally, long hours appear to be addictive, and a generation that heaved Japan out of the ashes to near the top of the world’s economic league cannot wind down on command. A Labour Ministry survey last year showed that the majority of workers were taking, on average, only a third of the two to four weeks paid leave to which they are entitled. The ministry mounted a campaign to persuade Japanese that taking the full complement of holidays did not betoken disloyalty or sloth, but officials are sceptical about the impact of their campaign on ingrained attitudes. Attitudes may change as job mobility increases and the famed “life employment’’ system becomes eroded by recession, but neither of these developments has yet become a trend. Most Japanese continue to enjoy a sense of community and togetherness at work — sometimes more strongly than within the bosom of the family even — and feel they have a real stake in the company’s wellbeing. Total involvement at work makes long hours natural and comparatively painless. The latest attempt by other

nations to persuade the Japanese to ease up is contained in a “confidential” report — reprinted in most of the newspapers in Tokyo — by Common Market officials seeking to explain the background to Europe’s trade problems with Japan. Japan’s relative economic strength and competitiveness, the report says, is due to “hard work, discipline, corporate loyalties, and the management skills of a crowded, competitive island people recently emerged from a feudal state.” People with these characteristics cannot be completely healthy, it implies. How can Europe compete with such a country when the Protestant work ethic “has been eroded at its foundations by egalitarianism, social compassion, environmentalism, State intervention, and a widespread belief that hard work and earning money are anti-social,” as the report says. The Japanese see no reason why they should be asked to succumb to this erosion by symptoms they recognise as the “eikoku byo” (English disease), simply to please their egalitarian, compassionate, and hedonistic competitors. “What are we supposed to do while Europeans take their summer holidays?” a M.1.T.1. vice-minister demanded not long ago, “Stop working?”