General Unions and Community Unions, and Japanese Labor Law

General unions and community unions are labor unions composed mainly of workers of smalland medium-sized enterprises and organized on a regional basis, beyond the boundaries of enterprises, and particularly referring to such labor unions that allow workers to join on an individual basis. As the Constitution and the Labor Union Act of Japan do not differentiate the treatment of labor unions according to their organizational aspects, both general unions and community unions are guaranteed the constitutional right to organize as well as to bargain and act collectively, as enterprise unions and other types of labor unions are guaranteed these rights. Yet, general unions and community unions are distinctive in the sense that, as one of their important tasks, these unions carry out collective bargaining substantially for the purpose of trying to resolve disputes arising from the dismissal or the working conditions of individual workers, which is different from the primarily presumed purpose of collective bargaining, i.e. establishing collective standards for working conditions. Due to this reality, the question of how to understand such a way of using collective bargaining in the context of the labor law arises. The academic views, the Labor Relations Commissions and courts recognize the collective bargaining processed by general unions and community unions for resolving individual disputes in labor relations as being eligible for protection and assistance under the Labor Union Act, and as being basically covered by the measures for assistance for dispute resolution, such as relief from unfair labor practices and dispute adjustment. This handling is based on the perception of the current situation where general unions and community unions serve as a safety net, to some extent, for workers of enterprises that do not have well-organized in-house unions. From the perspective of legal theory, however, there are still many issues that need further in-depth discussions on this point.