On December 20th last year, proposed guidelines on equal pay for equal work were announced by the Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform led by the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Please refer to the following URL for information about the proposed guideline.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/hatarakikata/dai5/siryou3.pdf
In response to this, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare has also released on their website a feature article about equal pay for equal work.
（http://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000144972.html）
The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare explains that the proposed guidelines are drafts yet, and will only be finalized after obtaining relevant professional opinions and the Diet deliberations.
It also states that the final guidelines would come into effect only when the upcoming legislative amendments commence, and “no administrative guidance will thus be extended to companies for not observing the current proposed guidelines”. Given the media introduces the comments made by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, many of our clients could be in a wait-and-see mode before taking any action to comply with the proposed guidelines.
On the other hand, the Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform has officially announced that the current proposed guidelines will be the bases of the future legislative amendments which shall be finalized based on the relevant professional opinions and debates in the Diet. Some members of the Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform commented that it was already exceptional to release the proposed guidelines before finalizing the legislative amendments, and the proposed guidelines would be defined as Ordinance for Enforcement for Labor Contract Act, Government Notices, or guidelines. PMP regards these comments important and considers that we should pay more attention to the current proposed guidelines.
The “Plans for Promoting Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens”, which is the foundation of the Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform, has issued project implementation milestones of equal work and equal pay. According to the milestones, guideline planning and operation (proposed guidelines were announced on December 20 2016), system and structure developments, and draft bill to the Diet are scheduled during 2016 and 2018, and a new legislation planned to be effective in 2019.
A question remains as to whether the actual implementation of equal work and equal pay will progress as planned. The shortest turn around prediction is to have the bill pass the Diet by 2018, and the Equal Work and Equal Pay related Act to be introduced from April 2019 (mainly with revisions in the Labor Contract Act).
As you can tell from the proposed guidelines, each company will need to revise the current compensation guidelines, welfare schemes or basic salary structures. We would like to kindly remind our clients that the overall compensation and benefit structure changes require a large amount of work and time, which could take up to one or two years until completion.
PMP will continue to provide our clients with up-to-date information on equal pay for equal work, and we greatly appreciate your feedback and comments.
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