Conclusion: Changes and Future Directions of Japanese Employment Relations

In this book, I have examined the transformation of Japanese employment relations realized by the reforms at various levels of regulation since the 1990s within the contexts of globalization and industrial structural change. The analyses were carried out from the sociological perspective that sees social institutions as political-cultural constructs. Thus the establishment of employment relations is seen as the political and cultural dynamic to set up various institutional arrangements that regulate the inherently political issues of unequal power relationships between buyer and seller in the labor market and the ‘indeterminacy’ of a labor contract. Historically, it is important to note that employment relations emerged as a part of the rise of citizenship in the context of industrialization and state formation. Labor market rules and labor standards were necessary in an attempt to allow individual workers to ‘freely’ dispose of themselves, and the arrangement of labor relations and collective bargaining became a major means for workers to negotiate the terms of the labor contract on an equal footing with employers. Labor management practices transform ‘labor power’ into ‘labor,’ and negotiations about these practices are the sites of workplace participation for workers. The historical development of politics in these domains shapes a pattern of employment relations specific to a society.