Ⅰ. Industrial Disputes

The term industrial dispute refers to any controversy or difference arising from disagreements between a labor union and an employer or employers’ association concerning the conditions of employment such as wages, working hours, welfare, dismissal.

1. Disputes arising from disagreements

Disagreements between the two parties are not always considered industrial disputes. However, if the two parties engage in collective bargaining but fail to reach an agreement, then their conflict is considered an industrial dispute.

2. State of disputes

Industrial disputes signify a state of dispute. Accordingly, it is a different concept from an industrial action under Article 2, subparagraph 6, of the Trade Union Act, which is an actual practice of collective power. However, in actual practice it is difficult to differentiate between the occurrence of industrial disputes and the occurrence of industrial action. In general, industrial actions are taken for a certain period of time after the parties of the Trade Union Act apply for mediation of an industrial dispute.

Ⅱ. Industrial Action

Industrial action refers to struggles between the labor union and the employer to take advantage of the state of industrial dispute in order to accomplish their goals. This shall not only contain any controversy or difference arising from disagreements between a labor union and an employer with respect to the determination of conditions of employment, but also include actions which obstruct the normal operation of a business.
Accordingly, industrial actions are such actions as strikes, slowdown strikes, lockouts, and other activities to obstruct the normal operation of a business, but those actions such as assembling outside working hours or wearing ribbons are not industrial actions.
Industrial actions engaged in by employees can employ typical methods such as strikes, slowdowns and production management strikes, and by subsidiary methods such as picketing, plant occupation, and boycotts. Sometimes, work-to-rule can be utilized.

1. Strikes
A strike is an industrial action where the workers collectively refuse to provide labor or to stop production and bring financial loss or loss of business to the employer.
The employees’ collective refusal to work during working hours, unless it is deemed as illegal for another reason, may simply be a failure to comply with the obligation to provide work. However, if such refusal to work prevents regular functioning of the business but is not a legitimate industrial action, it may constitute the criminal offense of business obstruction.

2. Slowdown strikes
In a slowdown strike, employees provide labor with deliberate inefficiency.

3. Production management
Under production management, the employees unite to defy the employer’s orders and occupy the plant and operate the business as they wish.

4. Boycott
In a boycott, the labor union deters the purchase of their employer’s or contractors’ products through appeal or advertisement, or collectively avoids using the facilities provided by the employer.
Boycott itself as one type of industrial action is justifiable, but when the labor union spreads untruths to promote boycotts, such behavior cannot be justified.

5. Picketing
Picketing is one industrial action by which the labor union persuades union members who are not willing to attend strikes and, instead, try to work, to cooperate with the strikers or to prevent them from holding anti-strike activities. Picketing is used as an alternative to striking. The union usually hangs a placard at the main entrance gate of the workplace, and its members protest around the entrance gate of the company and shout slogans.

As usual, a strike may be supplemented by picketing or a sit-in or stay-in at company premises to ensure or strengthen the effectiveness of work discontinuance. Picketing itself is a justifiable action, so long as strike participants do not verbally abuse or threaten to use physical violence.

6. Occupation of company premises
A labor union’s occupation of company premises as one method of active industrial action is justifiable only when it is a partial occupation and does not prevent the employer from entering or leaving. However, if the labor union occupies the company premises entirely and exclusively, preventing all but union members from entering, and causes stoppage or disturbance of the company’s operations, such behaviors can be seen as beyond justifiable limits.
Some union members occupied the front door and aisle leading to the office of the company head at the main building of a plant. They also sang and chanted during lunch breaks and at nighttime, preventing outsiders from coming into the main building and obstructing the normal functioning of the plant. In this case, their occupation and sit-ins were regarded as industrial actions.

7. Work-to-rule
Work-to-rule is used to deteriorate the company’s operational efficiency by observing very strictly the safety laws, which employees do not follow ordinarily, or by carrying out their rights in unusual ways.
The union, for the purpose of making a point, instructed union members(nurses) to use their monthly leave at the same time. This is an act of work-to-rule, which is a kind of industrial action. In addition, their working in plain clothes is also an industrial action, as they are required to wear uniforms for reasons of sanitation and a need to signify their position.
If employees, with the aim of having their demands met, refuse to do the holiday work that they usually did, such refusal is an industrial action as it undermines the regular functioning of the business.