Kato.

• Position: Japanese corporate participatory employment practices - Brief Article

Kato shows that Japanese firms have continued to use participatory employment practices, even during the overall economic slowdown in the 1990s and the recent financial crisis at the end of the decade. However, he points to a few early signs of trouble for these practices. First, while the number of full-time union officials has been falling substantially as a result of continued labor force downsizing, the amount of time and effort needed to put participatory employment practices in place has not changed. This often results in an uncompensated increase in workload for union officials, which could lead to their being less prepared and less committed to the interest of...