The main motive of this essay is to discuss and outline the significant of unions in South Korea and Japan. South Korea is well known for its booming and developing economy whereas the economy of Japan is a highly effective and market oriented economy. It is the third biggest in the world measured by nominal GDP. A comparison and contrast between the South Korea unions and Japan unions have been explained in the task briefly. In today’s modern world, trade or labor unions are becoming an important part of each and every organization. More detail of the task has been discussed below.
It is stated by Heery, Williams and Abbott (2012), unions play a significant and vital role in making good and strong employment relations in the workplace. Union is an association or society originated by people with a common purpose or interest. In other words, union is the action of combining together especially in a political context. The labors are unable to fulfill the expectations and requirements without unions. Union plays an empirical role in making dynamic relationship between employees and employers as well. They work for the welfare and rights of the workers. Unions negotiate agreements with employers on conditions and pay. Aside this, they discuss and explain major employees concerns and issues with employers. Unions are considered the representatives of the workers. They bargain with the managers or leaders on behalf of union members and negotiate worker contracts with employers. The main objective of unions or associations is to improve and maintain the working conditions. Trade unions show interest and rights of the employees in a hassle free manner. Unions also increase effectiveness and efficiency of the workers successfully (Sato, 2010).
Japan is an innovative and advanced industrialized country. Despite recessions, the country still is the second biggest monetary power in the world with population of 125 million people (Tripod, 2018). Employment relations in Japan may be characterized as relatively supportive. The employment relation system is incorporated on three pillars such as enterprise unionism, seniority based wages and lifetime employment. Job security is very high and effective in Japan. On the other hand, Korea was an agricultural economy with around 63% of the workforce employed in the primary sector. Goals and policies for economic expansion and development were fixed by the authoritarian government. It is noted by Ebbinghaus (2011), employment relation in South Korea were controlled and managed by government interventionist policy and approach aimed at protecting cheap and potential labor. Unions in various multinational companies took control of the shop floor and further management was enforced to enhance and improve the wages and working environment and set the corporate welfare programs.
It is stated that Japan’s union is dynamic and effective in the world. Japanese unionism can be explained as three pillar system whereas three pillar systems are not presented in South Korea. The structure of employment relations systems in South Korea has been directly connected with the political history of the post Korean War, and Korean business system. Various independent trade unions were expelled and generally represented by the authorities. The managers of the federation of Korean trade union [FKTU] were appointed by the state intelligence agency. Later, the FKTU was controlled and managed by the state. Trade unions were quite weak and widely dependent on the managers or employers. They do not provide support to the workers for performing roles and responsibilities effectively.
In the modern day business context, it is essential that companies maintain a healthy employee relation with their employees irrespective of the country they are operational in. Japan and South Korea both are technologically advanced market and hence there are many challenges confronting the companies. These challenges related to the employees might lead to poor performance which ultimately can lead to conflicts between management and the employees. Technology is advancing at much faster rate and this is leading to many types of Job cuts (Okamoto, 2017). This job cuts may lead to huge conflicts which might also lead to lock-outs and strikes. In this environment the role of Unions in both the nations becomes extremely important. The comparison and contrasting between the roles of unions in managing employee relations both the nations can be understood by various points.
The first thing that needs to be considered while making a comparison is that both the countries are highly influenced by the business of USA. The changes in the employment policies in USA also get reflected back in their employee relations. But the South Korean market is more intended towards the USA rules and Norms. This makes the role of their unions more significant as they will have to take care of the interest of the employees (Thorhallsson, 2017).
Japan has somehow moved towards raising the non-standard employment. Such non-standard employments have introduced performance related pay as well as modest deregulation (Miura, 2011). This kind of transformations effect the employee relations as if the company does not pay to the employees as per employee’s work then the chances of conflicts can be arise. On the other hand the conflicts between the management and the employees have been higher in South Korea especially related to permanent employment. This is also because of the fact that there is lot of multinational companies working in the nation and they have different kinds of working culture. The role of the unions is Korea is to ensure that no employee is exploited without being given the security for their future (Levinson, 2013).
The employee relation in Japan is relatively stable. Due to this fact that there is a high pay scale in the country and the norms of the companies irrespective of the changes in the global business environment have not changed considerably. In such an environment the role of the Unions is relatively low as compared to that of South Korea (Kelly, 2012). Apart from this Japan has a healthy relationship among labors and management as they follow cooperative culture. It also seen that the labor disputes have increased in past few years hence the role of Unions in Japan have become more significant. South Korea is having a multinational culture where the companies operational has to face greater impact of the global business environment (Kim and Bae, 2017).
The role of unions in Japan is decreasing as the future of employee unions are at stake in Japan. In the broader context it has been seen that Japan’s non-regular employment has increased which has led to increase in the poverty and inequality. The unions in Japan are fighting hard to remove this. They are playing the role of raising the questions that are related to working conditions. Japan’s union’s role can be understood by the fact that the atypical workers that are not represented by the unions face many types of challenges and their condition is even worse (Debroux, 2017). The slow growth of the Japan’s economy was also considered as one of the crucial factors in this regards. Since South Korea has two big employee unions hence the problem of existence is not so big for the country which in other case is slightly bigger (Hankyoreh, 2017). This is also because the Japan has relatively smaller trade unions having lesser numbers of employees joining it.
The unions of Japan have also played a major role in ensuring that there is lower unemployment rate. There is also an increase in the number of people that are not covered by such unions and hence problems related to employee relations have also increased (Noda and Hirano, 2013). Being such a technologically advanced nation provides a more transparent relation between the management and the employees and the role of the Japanese Unions in this is relatively less. On the other hand Korean Unions have greater role in increasing the transparency in the relationship. Both FKTU and KCTU have worked hard in this regards (Peng, 2012).
In Japan the employees works harder and has more attachment to the firms. In such an environment, the role of trade unions becomes easy (Peng, 2012). Along with this, Japan unions are relatively steady and they maintain a reciprocal relationship between labor and management as well. In today’s era, a number of individual labor conflicts and issues are growing thus, it may affect the progress and success of the organizations (Peng, 2012).
On the other hand the South Korean market relatively works on the mutual benefits of both employees and management and hence employees seeks greater benefit from the company and companies also demand for more work from the workers. In such a situation the unions have the role to work for mutual benefits (Rowley, 2013).
Apart from Japan and South Korea has a distinct cultural and historic background which has impact on the needs of the employees. Both the unions have to work hard so as to make firms respect their culture at the same time ensure that they include some parts of their culture at the workplace (Peng, 2012). This is also related to the working hours. Japan already has long working hours hence the problem for the unions over there is relatively less but the Korea is not having higher working hours so when the companies are trying to force people to work for extra hours they need to be made in good amounts. In Japan there is performance management system that encourages long term employment which is almost similar in the South Korean market. The role of the union in this regards is to maintain the labour laws standards that might promote people to work for larger period of time (Peng, 2012).
It is also to be understood that Japan is an ageing society and hence the demand for high quality pension and retirement benefits for the employees in Japan is increasing. The role of the unions is to take care of not only the employees that are working the companies in current time but the employees that have worked for the companies in the past. South Korea is relatively younger but it is also getting aged at a fast. It is the role of their trade unions to have discussion with the management so that benefits for such mass population can be ensured (Räthzel and Uzzell, 2012). In the coming future this will be the greatest problem that company is going to face. Both the unions have the role to work on seniority based wages. Apart from this it is also seen that in Japan companies are forcing employees to work even after the age limit. This calls for the need that extra benefits are provided to them along with the environment where they could easily work (Watanabe, 2015). For these employees company’s unions will have to work hard. Now it is noted that unions of Japan are completely different from the unions of South Korea. Unions are effective and significant to fulfill the expectations and needs of various employees.
It concludes from the above mentioned analysis that labor unions play a major role in maintaining reciprocal relationship between employee and employer as well. Unions act as an intermediary between its members and the business that employs them. Unions also provide various benefits such as collective bargaining and negotiation. They also help in maintaining favorable working environment at the workplace. The above analysis shows that how South Korean unions are quite different from the unions of Japan. Unions play fundamental role in both the countries to conduct business activities and operations in a hassle free manner. The merits and demerits of unions in both the countries such as South Korea and Japan have been explained in the task. Now it is recommended that organizations should uses innovative and dynamic strategies and techniques to promote and enhance the unions and to motivate them for increasing and enhancing the performance and productivity of the workers. In this way, organization can uplift their profitability and revenue in the competitive and further, they help in attracting and retaining large number of workers internationally.
References
Debroux, P., 2017. Human Resource Management in Japan: Changes and Uncertainties-A New Human Resource Management System Fitting to the Global Economy: Changes and Uncertainties-A New Human Resource Management System Fitting to the Global Economy. Routledge.
Ebbinghaus, B., 2011. The role of trade unions in European pension reforms: From ‘old’to ‘new’politics?. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 17(4), pp.315-331.
Hankyoreh, 2017. South Korea union membership rate inches up to 10.3%. [Online]. Available at: https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/822793.html [Accessed on 22nd August 2018]
Heery, E., Williams, S. and Abbott, B., 2012. Civil society organizations and trade unions: cooperation, conflict, indifference. Work, Employment and Society, 26(1), pp.145-160.
Kelly, J., 2012. Rethinking industrial relations: Mobilisation, collectivism and long waves. Routledge.
Kim, D.O. and Bae, J., 2017. Employment relations and HRM in South Korea. Routledge.
Levinson, C., 2013. International Trade Unionism (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Miura, M., 2011. The impact of two-party competition on neoliberal reform and labour unions in Japan. The Evolution of Japan’s Party System: Politics and Policy in an Era of Institutional Change, pp.177-204.
Noda, T. and Hirano, D., 2013. Enterprise unions and downsizing in Japan before and after 1997. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 28, pp.91-118.
Okamoto, H., 2017. Japan. In Towards Industrial Democracy(pp. 190-239). Routledge.
Peng, I., 2012. Economic Dualization in Japan and South Korea. The Age of Dualization: The changing face of inequality in deindustrializing societies, pp.226-249.
Räthzel, N. and Uzzell, D. eds., 2012. Trade unions in the green economy: Working for the environment. Routledge.
Rowley, C., 2013. The changing nature of management and culture in South Korea. Managing across diverse cultures in East Asia, pp.122-150.
Sato, K., 2010. The anatomy of Japanese business. In The Anatomy of Japanese Business (pp. 9-22). Routledge.
Thorhallsson, B., 2017. The role of small states in the European Union. Routledge.
Tripod.2018. Role of trade Unions in Japan, United States and Sweden: Comparative analysis [Online]. Available from https://members.tripod.com/~a_sid/works/IER.html [Accessed as on 22nd August 2018].
Watanabe, H.R., 2015. The struggle for revitalisation by Japanese labour unions: worker organising after labour-market deregulation. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 45(3), pp.510-530.
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