Japan panel favors base worker pay review

[unhappycamper]

Japan panel favors base worker pay review
By Hana Kusumoto and Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, November 28, 2009

TOKYO — A Japanese government working group recommended reviewing salaries of local workers on U.S. military bases as a potential cost-cutting measure, though it backed away from offering a specific proposal.

Nine of the 12 panel members said Thursday evening that base workers being paid more than private company workers in the same field should have their salaries cut.

A pay cut among the roughly 25,000 Japanese who work on bases would be the second since 2008, in the midst of one of Japan’s worst economic situations since the end of World War II.

The panel is part of the Administrative Reform Council, created soon after the Democratic Party of Japan took power in August as an attempt to fulfill its campaign pledge of a more transparent government spending process.

Japan pays the salaries of about 23,000 of those workers, though bilateral agreements require negotiation between the two countries on decisions affecting Japanese workers.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66347