How Differences in the Unionization Strategy of Non-Regular Workers Affect the Nature of Union Activity; Consulting Case Studies of Supermarket Chains in Japan and South Korea

Accompanying the shift observed in the industrial profile of developed countries from the manufacturing to the service industries comes a rise in the proportion of non-regular workers and a decline in the proportion of those who are unionized. This paper focuses on supermarkets, where the percentage of non-regular workers is particularly high, comparing labour laws, systems and policies relating to non-regular employment between Japan and South Korea. In both countries, there has been progress made in the unionization of non-regular workers in large supermarket chains since the turn of the century. In Japan, the unions for originally regular supermarket employees began to admit non-regular employees as their union members in the mid-2000s, while in South Korea, non-regular supermarket workers set up their own union separately from the regular workers union in the early 2010s. This paper examines how differences in the unionization strategy of non-regular workers affect the nature of the union activity, based on interviews carried out in both countries.