Shain (社員) is the everyday Japanese word for a company employee. In law, the same word means a member of a company or an association. The encyclopedia Nipponica notes that in everyday use the word means an employee. The encyclopedia MyPedia adds that an employee called shain is not a shain in the legal sense.
The Digital Daijisen defines the legal shain as a member of an incorporated association. In a stock company, it adds, these members are called kabunushi, shareholders.
At the Musashi factory of Hitachi, a worker refused an order to work overtime. The work rules stated that overtime could be required under the 36 agreement with the workers. The company dismissed him as a disciplinary measure.
On November 28, 1991, the Supreme Court held the dismissal valid. A summary by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare explains that the work rules were reasonable and formed part of the employment contract. The dismissal was not an abuse of rights.
On Mount Kōya, the center of Shingon Buddhism, Japanese companies have built graves of their own. A 1993 study by Nakamaki Hirochika counted 103 company graves on Mount Kōya and 23 on Mount Hiei.
The study describes what they hold. The company graves contain the graves of founders and memorial towers for employees who have died.
Nyūshashiki (入社式): the ceremony of entering the company. An HR glossary by the company Kaonavi defines it as the ceremony at which a company formally welcomes its new graduate employees. In Japan, it is usually held every April.
The glossary gives its purpose. The ceremony is meant to make new employees aware of themselves as working adults and as members of the company, kigyō no ichiin.
Article 16 of Japan’s Labor Contract Act reads: Kaiko wa, kyakkanteki ni gōriteki na riyū o kaki, shakai tsūnenjō sōtō de aru to mitomerarenai baai wa, sono kenri o ran’yō shita mono to shite, mukō to suru. A dismissal that lacks objectively reasonable grounds and is not considered appropriate in light of general social norms is invalid as an abuse of rights.
In 1929, during the depression, Matsushita Kōnosuke refused to cut the workforce of Matsushita Electric. Dakara, hitori mo kaiko shitara akan. So not a single person is to be dismissed.
Production was cut in half, and the factories worked half days. Shikashi jūgyōin no kyūryō wa zengaku o shikyū. But the employees were paid their full wages. In return, the employees were asked to put all their effort into selling the stock.
The oil company Idemitsu Kōsan was built on the principles of its founder, Idemitsu Sazō. A Japanese encyclopedia names among them daikazoku shugi, the principle of the great family, based on respect for people.
The business press summarizes it in three absences: shukkinbo nashi, teinen nashi, rōdō kumiai nashi. No attendance records, no retirement age, no labor union. The magazine President titled an article on the company: Idemitsu does not dismiss a single employee.
Membāshippu-gata koyō, membership-type employment, is a term used by the labor scholar Hamaguchi Keiichirō, who set it against job-type employment. A journal of the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training describes the membership type: employees are hired without a fixed job or workplace, and the company decides their job and workplace as needed, under its authority over personnel.
An employee of Tōa Paint refused a transfer to Nagoya for family reasons. He lived with his mother, aged 71, his wife, aged 28, and his daughter, aged 2. The company dismissed him as a disciplinary measure.
On July 14, 1986, the Second Petty Bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the transfer order was not an abuse of rights.
Japanese companies have hired young people in one batch at graduation, as regular employees without fixed duties. A presentation of the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training describes how the companies then meet changes in their need for staff: through in-house training and flexible transfers between jobs.
In the regular personnel transfers, teiki jinji idō, employees’ duties and places of work change.