How the japanese learn to work 2nd edition - part 8

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How the japanese learn to work 2nd edition - part 8 Training in the enterprise 127 As might be expected, the specific interest of trade union leaders— apartfrom the general interest in making the firm efficient and prosperous whichthey share with managers—lies in making sure that their members are notput in the uncomfortable position of doing jobs they have not been properlytrained for, and that they have the best chance of learning what they need inorder to develop their careers within the firm. (Not, that is to say, to persuadeemployers to help workers to acquire general skills which they might use toget jobs elsewhere.) There being few zero-sum elements involved, trainingwould seem an ideal field for union-management co-operation. It seems,however, not as common as might be expected. In the 1994 Sample 5 (Minkan1994), 42 per cent of the 2,600 respondent firms had a union. Of those firms,in 17 per cent the training programme was a matter of joint discussion and1 28 How the Japanes learn to workagreement; in another 25 per cent, the management consulted the union andtook their comments aboard; in 23 per cent the training programme wassimply something the management notified to the union, and in the remaining35 per cent the union had no involvement with training at all. Another study (Rodosho 1994) covered non-union as well as union firmsin a general labour-management communication study, carried out in 1994.The 58 per cent of all firms with some kind of consultation frameworkincluded 32 per cent of the firms without a union, but again for 38 per centof this number, total consultation did not cover education and training. Thedegree of involvement was much the same as in the other study. In only 6 percent was it a matter for co-decision, and in only 31 per cent were thereconsultations before arriving at final plans or decisions.COVERAGEThe figures from that survey quoted in Table 5.5 give some indication, also,of the general extent of involvement in training programmes—of whatconstitutes the typical Japanese firm. The simplest summatory statistic is thefinding that three-quarters of all the worker respondents were involved insome kind of training activity. There were, however, considerable differencesbetween industries, with very much lower rates in engineering than inchemicals, private railways or electrical firms. This, however, is difficult tointerpret since all the sample firms in the last three industries had more thana thousand workers, and those in engineering fewer than 500. Firm sizedifferences may exaggerate the differences between industries here, but theranking of industries by enthusiasm for training was the same in anotherMinistry survey. The percentage of firms having no formal trainingprogramme (in, apparently, a large sample) were: 4 per cent in utilities, andin banking and insurance, 10 per cent in commerce and in general services,and 23 per cent in engineering. Another measure of coverage is provided by another large-scale surveycarried out by the Ministry of Labour in 1985 and relating to training activitiesin 1984 (Minkan 1986:1,795 establishments, an effective response rate of45 per cent of an intended sample of 4,000 establishments with more than30 workers in the nonagricultural private sector. Sample 5). An attempt wasmade to measure the overall proportion of their employees who were involvedin one of five types of training activity during the twelve-month referenceperiod. The estimates were as follows: Training in the enterprise 129 A later round of this survey, in 1993, was extended to individuals as wellas to establishments (the sample was of over 13,000 with a 54 per centresponse rate (Minkan 1994). The proportion of the individual respondentswho said they had received some kind of off-the-job training during 1993was 66 per cent for men and 54 per cent for women. Most of these lectures/training sessions were organized within the firm. Of those outside the firm,there was a nearly equal number (each reported by 18 per cent of therespondents) organized by firms in the training industry and those organizedby the gyokai dantai, the relevant industry associations. Twelve per cent ofthe men and 6 per cent of the women said that the training was directed atgetting some kind of qualification.LARGE FIRMS AND SMALLThere is a common impression that there is a radical difference in Japanbetween the large firms with permanent employment, enterprise unions andall the other characteristics of the so-called ‘Japanese employment system’,and the small firm sector whose workers have none of the security andprivileges offered by the large firms. The former live in what are commonlytermed ‘internal labour markets’ (a phrase which wrongly ignores thedifference between intern ...