JAPANESE WOMEN NEWS

"POSITIVE ACTION VS. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION"

We have "positive discrimination-correction measures". They are to give an equal opportunity to women (or other minority groups.) who are disadvantaged as a result of longtime discrimination in social structure. They are called Positive Action or Affirmative Action.

In the United States, the Affirmative Action programs have been strictly enforced since they were started in the 1970s.

For example, employers are obliged to hire woman on the basis of a given ratio (quota) and to give them fair opportunity of promotion. In words of a professor of University of California of the United States, the "Affirmative action has created a revolution in the society steadily over the years."

If he should look for a new worker at his university office, for instance, he is under the rule of hiring a woman in effort to fulfill the quota. If he finds a male candidate who qualifies for the job better, he will still have to hire a woman who is not so good.

Such a rule applies to every institution that receives taxpayers' money in one way or another. They include public offices, libraries, state universities and public schools and every company and organization that gets contract work from the government and public institutions.

"If Japan implements such a rule, the construction industry will be full of women," the professor chuckles, knowing that it is the least women-friendly, and incidentally declining industry.

Don't people complain about the negative impact of the rule, say, about the consequently lower efficiency or the reverse discrimination to males?

"Well, they may have complaints," he admits. "But," he says, "it is a fact everyone admits that women have been treated unfairly and we need justice to correct it."

Japan has the Positive Action programs, meanwhile. They do not have a quote to impose, either punishment to those who do not follow the suit. The authorities gently encourage employers to "make efforts" to achieve a numerical goal within a certain length of time and thus to build equality between genders. The revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law stipulates that the government should assist such efforts.

For example, some employers have set a goal to get rid of the vast gap between salaries of men and women, a common symbol in the male-oriented structure of human resource policies on hiring and promotion. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare made proposals in April for promoting such efforts, advising them to make the top manager's commitment to the cause recognizable.

Of all Japanese companies, only 26.3% pledge that they are already committed to Positive Action measures, while other 13% claims they plant to. So far, however, no dramatic changes are yet in sight.

Three female employees of the Nomura Securities won in the court in March this year, where they had appealed they had been discriminated for many years in promotion and in wages. The Tokyo District Court rules on the negligence by the company and ordered payments of more than 50 million yen for compensation. Nomura had continued discriminating women even after the revised equality law was enforced in l999. It was quite a deja vu, making us wonder, "Didn't we hear about such a case 20 years ago?"

Some people point out that foreign companies are making most visible actions in this area in Japan. American companies would apply to their Japanese office the rules and systems build through the Affirmative Action experiences at home. Top managers at these companies are often keen about increasing women in management positions. No wonder many competent Japanese women are heading for jobs at foreign companies.

Is this another "Black Ship," or effective foreign pressure like the foreign ships that forced to let Japan open doors to the world in mid-l9th century? Some people say that dramatic social changes happen in Japan only under foreign pressures. The Affirmative Action programs may offer another such case.

DEC. 2002, by Mutsuko Murakami