5.8% Pay Hike Expected in Japan : Labor: Two brief strikes were settled to bring the ‘spring wage offensive’ almost to a close.

Settlement of two brief strikes Thursday all but concluded Japan’s annual “spring wage offensive,” which is expected to bring an average increase of 5.8% for Japanese workers.

Employees of nine railway companies shut down commuter service for about an hour but were back on the job in time for the morning rush. Union officials and executives of the companies had negotiated through the night. In the end, management agreed to raise wages by 6.87%, or $110.83 a month.

Employees of the giant Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. also went out for about an hour, until management agreed to an increase of 6.4%, or $107.66 a month.

Major unions in manufacturing industries have settled for increases of less than 6%, which the new Japan Trade Union Confederation had set as a goal for the first wage offensive since it was established last November. The confederation represents 8 million workers.

In the fields of electronics and autos, management said that despite 40 months of continuing economic growth and an increasingly serious labor shortage, fears of inflation and depressed stock values made it necessary to hold wage increases below 6%.

Auto workers received increases averaging 5.9%; workers in shipbuilding and heavy industry, 5.4%, and steelworkers, 4.7%. Workers in service industries, where negotiations are continuing, are expected to get increases of more than 6%.

Thus, it appears that the nationwide average will be about 5.8%, the highest since the 7% of 1982. Last spring’s average was 5.2%.

Akira Yamagishi, chairman of the labor confederation, said the outcome should not be regarded as a defeat for labor despite the failure to reach the 6% goal.

“Without the amalgamation of labor unions,” he said, “the wage rises would have fallen below 5.5%.”

He said the relative decline of Japan’s currency, the yen, and the plunge of share prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had helped restrain wage increases.

Electronics workers this year won wage increases matching the 5.93% increase that Toyota, the biggest auto maker and the most prosperous corporation in Japan, approved for its workers. Last year, electronics workers received an average 5.4% increase; at Toyota the increase was 5.2%. In electronics, the increase amounted to $86.13 a month; at Toyota, $96.90.

Fixed working hours at Toyota were reduced by eight hours to 1,960 a year. Last year, Toyota workers put in 2,300 hours on the job, with 332 of that paid at an overtime rate of 1.3 times regular pay.

Last year, Toyota workers received a bonus equal to six months’ pay; this year, a Toyota spokesman said, the bonus is expected to be $2,065, which would bring total annual earnings to $37,000 if overtime remains the same.

All Japanese workers are paid a bonus that amounts to a third or more of their annual pay.

Meanwhile, two major banks revised their forecasts for the economy, citing falling stock prices, rising interest rates and the declining relative value of the yen. Tokai Bank lowered its predicted growth figure by 1 percentage point to 3.5%, and Daiichi Kangyo Bank lowered its by half a percentage point to 4.1%.