JAL president Haruka Nishimatsu cut his own pay and even lines up with other employees for lunch in the company cafeteria. -- PHOTO: AP
TOKYO - WHILE US bosses are under fire for 'fat-cat' bonuses, Japanese executives have largely avoided a row over corporate greed by cutting their own pay or even working for free during the economic crisis.
When US auto bosses were being lambasted recently for flying to Washington in private jets to plead for government aid, the head of Japan Airlines (JAL), Asia's biggest carrier, was taking the bus to work with regular commuters.
A lot of soul-searching
OF COURSE, most Japanese executives are still whisked to the office in chauffeur-driven cars, but in general they do not flaunt their wealth and bosses are often quick to step down when things start to go wrong.
Indeed, the presidents of companies including Toyota, Sony, Toshiba, Honda and Hitachi have all recently bowed out - in many cases to make way for a younger generation of leaders to lead the firms through the economic downturn.
JAL president Haruka Nishimatsu cut his own pay and even lines up with other employees for lunch in the company cafeteria.
At Japanese computer chip maker Elpida Memory, group president Yukio Sakamoto voluntarily went without a salary for two months last year to help turn around the group's poor performance.
He is not the only one making sacrifices. According to a survey by the Nikkei business daily, the heads of more than 200 listed Japanese firms have cut their own pay since last April.
Toyota Motor, the world's biggest automaker, has scrapped executive bonuses this year.
Even before the recession began, Japanese bosses' salaries were relatively modest compared with their US peers.
'Japan's CEO compensation is much lower compared to the United States,' said Professor Hideaki Miyajima, a corporate governance expert at Waseda University.
The main reason is that a Japanese boss is a kind of a 'representative of the employees' and will have typically joined the firm as a graduate and competed with colleagues for promotion.
In this kind of situation it is hard to pay the company head significantly more than colleagues of a similar age, he said.
In fact, a chief executive in the United States earns about four times as much as a Japanese CEO, according to a survey by the human resources firm Towers Perrin published in 2006. -- AFP
