Japanese Labor's Silken Tranquillity

COMPARED with his blue-collar counterparts in the West, the Japanese worker is underpaid and overworked. Still he seems surprisingly contented with his lot. Rarely does the Japanese factory hand walk out on a long and costly strike. His energetic work habits are reflected in his country's productivity, which has been rising at an annual rate of 11.8%, helping to make Japan the world's fastest-growing industrial power. More and more Western businessmen are beginning to envy the tranquil relationship between Japanese labor and management.

All in the Family. Much of the reason for this productive peacefulness lies in the psychology of the Japanese people. Their swift passage out of feudalism in little more than a century has not completely erased the stoic acceptance of a fixed hierarchical order. In contrast to most Americans, Japanese workers are quite willing to bow to managerial authority and place their own desires second to the goals of the company that pays their wages.

Toyota Motor Co., Japan's largest automaker, is a prime example. Like all car manufacturers, Toyota finds it increasingly difficult to hire young men to fill achingly monotonous jobs on the assembly line, which rolls off 60 cars an hour. "The work is simple and boring, and it is hard to get a sense of accomplishment from it," says Kentaro Sasaki, a 25-year-old personnel officer, who spent six months on the line. But whatever their feelings, the plant's workers apply themselves diligently. "They try to increase their output to show that they can do the job well," Foreman Schoichi Tsuchida told TIME Correspondent Edwin Reingold.

The company's attitude toward the worker is also important in keeping labor peace. It is often said by economists that a Japanese company is not in business so much to make a profit as to fulfill its obligation to employees. Like most Japanese firms, Toyota practices a silken but binding paternalism designed to make the company's 38,500 employees feel that they are part of a large family rather than corporate cogs. Veteran workers are encouraged to spend hours of their own time helping newcomers improve their skills, and bosses generally attend subordinates' weddings.

In common with all Japanese workers, Toyota employees are never laid off--even during the slack period of model changeovers. The comforting sense of security is exceedingly important. The only serious strike Toyota ever had was in 1950, after 2,000 workers were let go. Before the strikers returned to their jobs, President Kiichiro Toyoda had to accept personal responsibility for the firings and commit a kind of corporate hara-kiri by resigning.

Rising Salaries. Job hopping is unusual. The deeply rooted Japanese system of pegging raises and promotions almost exclusively to seniority is an inducement for young people to stick with one company. If a worker stays with Toyota, thus proving his loyalty, he is almost certain to be advanced every seven years through a system of fixed, regular promotions. After 21 years he can bank on becoming a foreman. During this time he is likely to undergo periodic retraining and be transferred from one department to another. No Toyota employee has to look forward to a lifetime of doing nothing but tightening nuts and bolts or welding car-door frames.

A new worker at Toyota earns only about $100 a month for a six-day, 42-hour week. But the fact that wages at the company have risen at an annual average of 20% for the last four years at least gives him something to look forward to. Moreover, he gets more than a month off in paid vacation and holidays. In addition, the company inspires productivity through a generous system of bonuses geared to profits; this year profits were high enough to allow every Toyota employee to collect a handsome bonus of 6.1 months' pay.

Discounts and Diamonds. Fringe benefits cushion almost every aspect of a worker's life. Toyota provides free bus transportation to and from work and pays for the gasoline of workers who commute in their own cars. Company cafeterias offer cheap and diverse menus, including the popular hamburger. Rolling clinics visit the factories each day for sick call, and the company maintains a 344-bed hospital with 20 doctors in attendance.

Off the job, single workers can rent space in Toyota's tatami dormitory for as little as $2 a month. If married, employees are eligible for company apartments, which cost between $3 and $17; commissaries sell food at a 10% discount. A worker who wants to buy his own home can borrow money from the company.

His employer also provides a plenitude of sports and recreational facilities--swimming pools, meeting halls, tennis courts, golf courses, baseball diamonds and rugby fields. Hundreds come out to cheer the Toyota teams in competition with those of other companies. Classes are offered in flower arranging, sumo wrestling, water skiing, skating, weight lifting, squash and judo. A worker or his wife can learn to play a guitar and join a company band. For vacationing employees, Toyota maintains a string of mountain and seaside resorts, which charge about $1.40 a day, including food. These benefits are motivated less by union pressure than by management's desire to reinforce worker loyalty.

Unions in Japan are vastly different in structure and outlook from those in the West. Instead of banding together by craft, small Japanese unions have jurisdiction over individual plants and thus have far less clout than huge American unions. Japan has an estimated 56,000 unions, some of which are allied in four federations. The individual unions tend to be led by men who have been brought up in the company and maintain a strong loyalty to it.

Unbeatable Mistresses. Massive industrialization in Japan is less than 40 years old, thus there are no bitter memories of labor strife like those that nourish the militancy of U.S. workers. Far from viewing management as an enemy, most Japanese believe that in working to improve the company, they are helping themselves, the economy and the nation. Indeed, they are. Last year, for example, Japan produced 2,600,000 cars, of which 281,162 were shipped to the U.S., including 150,000 Toyotas.

More than anything else, it is the worker's attitude toward his job that accounts for Japan's labor peace. The average machine-tool operator at Toyota was raised in an atmosphere of obedience that he has never really shed. He is not overly attached to such Western values as individual liberty. He views the company as an extension of all his other social relationships, not, as many Westerners see it, a world apart. A worker's job is often more important to him than his home life, a fact that most Japanese wives accept with equanimity. In Japan, the company is a hard mistress to beat.

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