Major corporations' ongoing restructuring measures dealt a heavy blow to workers as the auto, steel, shipbuilding and electrical appliance industries effectively ended their annual spring wage talks Wednesday offering record low pay increases.
The labor unions at the four industries belonging to the Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions (IMF-JC) -- which represents some 4,000 unions -- are expected to broadly accept the offers for fiscal 2000 wages without going on strike, union officials said.
Results of wage talk negotiations by IMF-JC affiliated unions are watched by other industries as bellwethers for spring wage negotiations -- known as "shunto."