Iron Ore Benchmark System May Be Scrapped, Deutsche Says

Iron Ore Benchmark System May Be Scrapped, Deutsche Says
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By Jason Scott

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The annual iron price benchmark contract system may be scrapped as producers seek individual arrangements, Deutsche Bank AG said.

“The stress on the benchmark system has never been greater,” Deutsche analyst Peter O’Connor said today at a conference in Perth, Australia. There’s been a 50 percent increase in spot sales from Australian producers in the past six months as buyers renege on contracts, he said.

Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the producer of the steelmaking raw material, said last month it wouldn’t seek to be the price setter this year. Vale has traditionally been the first iron-ore supplier to set so-called benchmark annual contract prices with steelmakers, establishing the basis for settlements by other miners in the international market.

In mid-2008, after a surge in demand, Australian producers BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group achieved price increases of 85 percent or higher for their ore, exceeding the 65 to 71 percent gained by Vale earlier in the year.

BHP, the world’s largest mining company, is also participating in off-exchange trading for iron ore offered by Credit Suisse Group and Deutsche Bank. The banks’ trading platforms handle swaps with initial maturities as far out as December 2009 that are settled in cash each month against an iron-ore index published by Metal Bulletin.

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Eat-What-You-Kill Bond Traders Rise From Wreckage (Update2)
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By Caroline Salas and Pierre Paulden

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street bond trading is heading back to the 1980s, when private partnerships and independent firms dominated the market.

Jon Bass, who traded debt five seats from Salomon Brothers Inc. Chairman John Gutfreund and later helped run fixed income at UBS AG, joined equity broker BTIG LLC to help start its credit operation last month. BTIG, with a pool table and gym adjoining its seventh-floor midtown Manhattan trading room, is one of more than 50 credit dealers seeking to take advantage of the widening gap at which securities are bought and sold.

Smaller firms are emerging from the wreckage of the world’s largest financial companies, which are conserving capital following more than $1.2 trillion of writedowns and credit losses since the start of 2007. They’re luring traders with a shot at $500,000 commissions for two days’ work as banks that accepted federal bailouts retrench and slash bonuses.

“I don’t mean to dance on anybody’s graves here, but it’s just this incredible opportunity to reassemble a securities firm that does business the right way,” said Lee Fensterstock, chief executive officer of one of the firms, Broadpoint Securities Group Inc. in New York. “That business is going to lead with brain as opposed to capital. We’re not planning to run big balance sheets or big leveraged positions.”

Bear Stearns, Lehman

Broadpoint, whose shares have outperformed Citigroup Inc.’s by almost 51 percentage points this year, has added more than 240 people since September 2007. They include traders from Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., which either collapsed or were absorbed by bigger banks amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the closely held securities firm, has hired 100 people in the past six months from banks, including UBS and Bear Stearns.

Just as when Gutfreund, 79, walked the aisles of Salomon’s trading floor, BTIG’s principals aren’t secluded in their offices during the day, said Bass, 46, who most recently headed fixed-income client management at UBS.

“Back then it was motivating to see the person running the firm in the trenches,” Bass said. “It’s getting back to basics.”

Partnerships including Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley went public in the 1980s, and many closely held firms disappeared into larger banking institutions by the end of the next decade. The trend accelerated after Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s creation of New York-based Citigroup and the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banks.

‘Free’ Liquidity

After Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reduced interest rates at the start of the decade, banks borrowed inexpensively to buy long-term assets including subprime mortgage securities, said Michael Aronstein, Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.’s chief investment strategist.

“When liquidity became free, five or seven years ago, that changed the Street: You could trade $500 million of anything in a second,” said Shawn Matthews, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in New York, a unit of Cantor Fitzgerald LP.

“It has to go back to a time where it looked and felt like it was in the ‘80s,” Matthews said. “How many 28-year-olds can you put in positions to trade $2 billion?”

Morgan Stanley’s trading profits rose to records in 2006 and early 2007 when its leverage, the ratio of assets to shareholder equity, rose to 33 times. The New York-based firm reported a record $2.9 billion of revenue from fixed income for the second quarter of 2007.

Subprime Losses

Banks traded their own investments alongside client orders, “combining hedge funds, which is what these places turned into, with customer-oriented businesses” and creating conflict-of- interest concerns, Aronstein, 55, said. “The fact is it ended in tears.”

Losses in June 2007 at two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in subprime mortgage securities led to the firm’s government-arranged takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. of New York in March 2008. Six months later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. acquired Merrill Lynch as the world’s largest brokerage suffered almost $19 billion in net losses tied to mortgages.

New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which was the world’s biggest and most-profitable securities firm, and Morgan Stanley, converted to bank holding companies. Each received $10 billion from the U.S. government. UBS and Citigroup lost more than $138 billion and governments globally have intervened to protect the financial system from collapse.

‘Partnership Mentality’

“If Wall Street had kept the partnership mentality we wouldn’t be in this mess,” said Matthews, 42, of Cantor Fitzgerald. “The universal bank model is wounded, if not destroyed.”

After financial institutions eliminated more than 284,000 jobs and slashed pay, smaller firms are hiring salesmen and traders who wouldn’t have considered boutiques during the boom, Fensterstock, 61, said.

Banks were paying “huge amounts of restricted stock,” to keep employees, he said. “Because of the decimation firms are either out of business or with the stock performance of a Bank of America or a Citigroup, that’s no longer a factor. You have this perfect storm,” he said.

Citigroup shares have tumbled almost 95 percent to $3.03 from a peak of $56.41 in December 2006. Bank of America has fallen 87 percent to $7.26 from $54.90 in November 2006.

Fensterstock, who ran PaineWebber’s worldwide sales and trading in the early 1990s, said commission-based compensation, known as eat what you kill, is an “extremely important” aspect of the boutique model.

Banks Lower Pay

Broadpoint wants to put about half of its trading revenue into employees’ pockets, with 30 percent to 40 percent for salesmen and 10 percent to 20 percent for traders, he said.

Some salesmen at the largest firms, which are reducing compensation as business slows under the glare of government oversight, saw their compensation fall from $2 million in 2007 to just their base salary of $150,000 in 2008, with no bonus, according to Michael Maloney, president of Wall Street recruiting firm Maloney Inc.

“All the A-level and B-level salesmen will make more money on commission,” Maloney said. “I know one salesman who made half a million dollars in his pocket in 48 hours. He could gross $500 million at Citibank and he’s not going to get paid a dime.”

For all the opportunity, many of the 50 start-up boutique dealers in New York won’t succeed, he said.

‘Critical Mass’

“They just don’t have enough critical mass,” Maloney said. “A lot of people are just setting up firms where they have a Bloomberg and five or six people they used to work with.”

BTIG, which had five employees in 2002, plans to add at least 26 more salesmen and traders for investment-grade bonds, high-yield and distressed debt, said John Purcell, 50. With Bass, Purcell is co-head of global fixed income at the 270- person firm and ran global fixed-income syndicate at Citigroup.

ICP Capital, a boutique investment bank set up in 2004, has almost doubled its staff since last year’s second quarter to 74 people, including Patrick Russell, 40, the former co-head of residential mortgage trading at Morgan Stanley, said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at ICP.

John Costas, the former head of UBS’ investment bank, and Michael Hutchins, who previously headed the debt unit of UBS, are starting a financial services firm preliminarily named VinsonForbes.

Bid-Ask Spread

A shortage of trading capital at the biggest banks has increased the gap between how much they pay to buy or sell fixed-income securities. The so-called bid-ask spread has almost doubled to 19 basis points in the past six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Those spreads will narrow in the next couple of years, and banks will attempt to win back business through financing, said Adam Yarnold, 33, who trades residential mortgage securities and distressed bonds backed by consumer loans at Braver Stern & Co. in New York. The firm has 15 traders and salesmen.

“The next 12 to 24 months will be make or break for the smaller shops,” said Yarnold, a former army ranger who helped run Deutsche Bank AG’s residential mortgage-backed securities desk in New York until July. “There will be a high mortality rate but the boutiques that make it will win big.”

Gutfreund, the former chairman of Salomon Brothers, said the resurgence of smaller firms has only to do with greed and necessity.

‘Always Money’

“The motivation is always money,” said Gutfreund, the president of Gutfreund & Co. in New York. “The reason people are leaving is because they need the money and a job.”

U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd last month proposed restrictions on executive compensation at companies that received money from the government’s financial rescue fund. U.S. House Democratic leaders voted March 19 on a 90 percent tax on executive bonus payments by companies receiving more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has also criticized Merrill Lynch for paying $3.6 billion in bonuses for 2008.

“The talent is streaming out of the doors of the big firms,” Bruce Foerster, a former Lehman Brothers managing director and now president of South Beach Capital Markets in Miami said. “As the best and the brightest leave, they will tip their hat to Senator Christopher Dodd. Bright people won’t want to be at places where the government is.”

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14:13 GMT, Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Lebanon approves Syria ambassador

A Lebanese policeman outside the building housing the new Syrian embassy in Beirut

Lebanon has approved the appointment of the first Syrian ambassador to Beirut, five months after the neighbours set up their first formal diplomatic contacts.

"President Michel Suleiman approved the nomination of Ali Abdul Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut," an official in Beirut said.

Syria opened its embassy in December but had delayed naming an envoy.

It had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time.

Damascus finally did so some 60 years after the two countries gained independence. Until 2005, Damascus kept troops stationed in Lebanon.

Lebanon's ambassador to Damascus, Michel el-Khoury, was named at the start of 2009 and the embassy was opened in the Syrian capital earlier in March.

Syria had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time, some 60 years after the two countries gained independence.

Syria pulled out its troops from Lebanon after almost 30 years of political and military domination, amid a wave of popular protest after the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in February 2005.

Many anti-Syrian Lebanese blamed Damascus for the killing, although Syria denied any involvement.

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Syria names its first ever ambassador to Lebanon
Published: Tuesday, 24 March, 2009 @ 6:22 PM in Beirut

Beirut - Syria has named its first ambassador to Lebanon and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman accepted his diplomatic accreditation Tuesday, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidential Palace in Baabda.

ali abdul Karim ali.jpg

The Lebanese presidential Palace issued today the following statement:

"President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut."


Ali,56 , has been Syria's ambassador to Kuwait since November 2004 and has also served as the head of Syria's official News agency SANA.


Lebanon last week opened its first embassy in Damascus and has named its first ambassador as Michel Khoury. Khoury is the current Lebanese ambassador to Cyprus

Syria had opened its Beirut embassy last December .

Syria has faced international pressure to establish formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon, which had been dominated for decades by its larger neighbor until the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Establishment of formal relations had been a central demand of anti-Syrian Lebanese factions that won an election in 2005 following the Hariri killing and the withdrawal of Syrian troops who had first entered Lebanon in 1976.

The United States and France had led pressure on Syria to establish formal ties with Lebanon. Syria had resisted the move, citing the countries' shared history and close ties. Syria and Lebanon were carved out of the Ottoman Empire by imperial powers France and Britain in the 20th century.

Syria has yet to meet international demands to formally demarcate its border with Lebanon.

Syria dominated politics in Lebanon until the Hariri assassination, which increased international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops from the country.

Anti-Syrian politicians have accused Syria of orchestrating the assassination of Hariri and other anti-Damascus figures. Syria has always denied the accusations.


About Syria's first ambassador to Lebanon

Education: BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Damascus

Professional experience : Prior to moving to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has worked in the print media , radio and television in Syria for more than twenty-five years , where he held various positions, including:

- Director of Broadcasting

- Director of Television

- General Manager and Chief Editor of Syrian Arab news agency (SANA)

At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he held the following positions

2002 - 2003: Deputy Ambassador to the Syrian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

2003 -2004: Charge d'affairesof the Syrian Embassy in Kuwait.

Since November 2004: Syrian ambassador in Kuwait.


Ali is a Political analyst and writer and poet and writes on politics and literature on an ongoing basis. In 1998 he issued his collection of poems under the title : "Invocations of a cold summer"

He is married with four children , 2 girls and 2 boys

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Russia to postpone talks with Ukraine after recent deal with EU


MOSCOW, Mar 24 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia will postpone talks with Ukraine because of a recent Ukrainian-E.U. energy agreement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday at a meeting of the Security Council.

He said the intergovernmental talks had been previously scheduled for next week.

On Monday, Ukraine and the E.U. signed a declaration under which E.U. companies are expected to invest in the Ukrainian gas pipeline system and increase its capacity.

"The content of that declaration raises certain questions," Medvedev said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier on Monday he believed E.U.-Ukrainian talks on pipeline upgrades without Russia's participation were "not serious."

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko declared Tuesday that the declaration did not violate Russia's interests. She also said that Japanese companies could also invest in Ukraine's pipeline system.

Bogdan Sokolovsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's presidential executive office, said Ukraine was interested in Russia's participation in the pipeline system's modernization.

Commenting on the issue, Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian energy company Eni, said that his company, as well as Germany energy company E.ON and Gaz de France, believed an international consortium for running Ukrainian pipelines should be set up.

In 2003, Gazprom, Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, and German energy company E.ON Ruhrgas concluded a preliminary agreement to run Ukraine's pipeline system. However, the agreement has not been finalized.

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China to cooperate with Russia against U.S. dollar
24.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/107287-China_Russia_dollar-0

China supported Russia’s initiative to develop a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the U.S. dollar saying that such a move is necessary in today’s world. Moreover China is ready to discuss this issue at the G20 summit in London, a vice governor of the country's Central Bank said on Monday.

On the one hand Russia should be glad to have such a strong ally; on the other hand there likely will be no actions from the Chinese side because today China holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

"We believe it is necessary to consider the IMF's role in this process and also define the possibility and the need to adopt measures allowing for Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to become an internationally recognized super-reserve currency," Russia's proposal read.

Hu Xiaolian said that China, which holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, was prepared to debate the issue as "the dollar's dominance and U.S. economic woes could entail considerable currency fluctuations and affect the world financial situation."

At the same time, she said that discussion into a new global currency could be started but considering the dollar's status as the current primary currency, "we should focus more on enhancing control over the existing system."

The G20 summit, involving advanced and emerging economies and international financial institutions, will be held in London on April 2, aimed at finding ways to overcome the ongoing global financial crisis, RIA-Novosti reports.

On March 13, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said he was concerned about the safety of those assets, particularly because huge economic stimulus plans could lead to soaring deficits in the United States, which could sink the dollar’s value.

Should China lose its appetite for Treasuries, the United States’ borrowing costs could rise, making it more costly for Washington to carry out economic stimulus packages and for Americans to pay off their mortgages, nytimes.com reports.

Nicholas Lardy, an economist and China specialist at the Peterson Institute in Washington, said that through its proposal, China was indicating that the dollar’s long dominance was unfair, allowing the United States to run huge deficits by borrowing from abroad, and that the risks to holders of Treasuries were growing.

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Skypeが国際通話トラフィックでトップに

2009/03/25

　通信関連の調査会社PriMetricは3月24日、国際通話サービスを提供する単一の事業者としてSkypeが世界最大となったとするレポートを発表した。調査したのはPriMetricの一部門、TeleGeography。

　調査によれば国をまたいだ音声通話のトラフィックは2007年に14％、2008年に12％と伸びているという。通話料が下がっていることから、事業者の収入自体はほぼ横ばい。

　堅調なトラフィックの伸びが見られる中でも際だって伸びているのがSkypeで、2008年に約41％増加している。総計4170億分の通話のうち、330億分がSkypeによるもので、これは全体の8％に相当。国際通話サービス事業者としてトップに立った。

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Syria uranium traces not conclusive, says IAEA
Source: BI-ME and Reuters , Author: BI-ME staff
Posted: 18-11-2008
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SYRIA. Traces of uranium found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel last year were not sufficient evidence of nuclear activity there, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said yesterday.

“We won’t be able to reach a quick conclusion unless we have credible information,” Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference in Dubai. “There was uranium but it does not mean there was a reactor.”

Diplomats in Vienna told Reuters earlier this month that particles of processed uranium were found in samples taken by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from the site in eastern Syria, and said the findings warranted further investigation before any conclusions were drawn.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has dismissed as politically motivated the disclosures about the uranium traces and said the uranium could have come from munitions used by Israel to bomb the site in September last year.

ElBaradei said a report on Syria’s alleged covert atomic activity which the IAEA will release later this week will also not be conclusive.

“The report will say that there is still a lot of work to do. [There will be] no conclusion on whether there was a reactor or not,” he said.

Both Syria and Israel should co-operate with the IAEA’s investigation of Syria’s alleged covert programme, he said.

“We need co-operation from Syria; we need co-operation from Israel,” he said. “I would still like more transparency from the Syrians,” he added.

Washington, Israel’s chief ally, says the site was a secret nuclear reactor that was almost complete when it was bombed by Israel, which embarked on indirect peace talks with Syria months later.

Syria says the target of the Israeli attack was a disused military building, denies it was a plutonium-making reactor under construction, and it says the US intelligence was fabricated.

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元親方「兄弟子らで終了できた」…力士暴行死で

　大相撲時津風部屋の序ノ口力士、時太山＝当時（１７）、本名斉藤俊さん＝暴行死事件で、傷害致死罪に問われた元親方、山本順一被告（５９）の公判が２５日、名古屋地裁（芦沢政治裁判長）で開かれた。山本被告は被告人質問で「兄弟子らの判断でぶつかりげいこを終わらせることができた」と述べた。

　山本被告は、検察側から入門間もない斉藤さんに約３０分間にわたるぶつかりげいこをさせたのは異常ではないかと問われると「そうは思わなかった」と答えた。兄弟子らがこれまでの公判で「元親方の指示なく、終了できなかった」と証言した点について「斉藤さんが力を出し切って当たれば、わたしの指示がなくても終わらせることができた」と反論した。

ZAKZAK 2009/03/25

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Czech MPs oust government over economic crisis

By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Nikki Tait in Brussels

Published: March 25 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 25 2009 02:00

The Czech government collapsed last night after losing a vote of confidence over its handling of the economic crisis.

The 101-96 vote marks the end of the coalition government of Mirek Topolanek, the centre-right prime minister, as well as the effective conclusion of the already bumpy and crisis-ridden Czech presidency of the European Union, which formally expires on June 30. The vote comes ahead of a visit to Prague next month by Barack Obama, US president.

"How can a government which has no support in the country be able to lead the European Union?" said Jiri Pehe, a Prague-based political scientist.

Mr Topolanek said he planned to resign after returning from a trip to Brussels. Jiri Paroubek, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, has said that he will only push for fresh elections after the Czech Republic's current presidency of the European Union expires.

The EU tried to put the best face possible on the embarrassing failure of the government leading the Union, issuing a statement that said: "It is for the Czech Republic's democratic process under the constitution to resolve the domestic political issues; the Commission is confident that this is done in a way which ensures the full functioning of the council presidency."

The unexpected fall of Mr Topolanek's government adds strength to the French argument that the presidency of a 27-member union which forms the world's largest economy is unsuited for smaller and ill-prepared countries.

Mr Topolanek, facing the fifth vote of confidence in his third year as prime minister, was unable to win over enough independent MPs to save his government.

The initiative now passes to Vaclav Klaus, the euro-sceptic Czech president, who will have to name a caretaker administration to govern the country. If three attempts to form a new government fail, then new elections are called.

The difficulty in forcing new elections raises the possibility that a technocratic government will limp along in power until the next election, set for June 2010.

The opposition Social Democrats currently lead Mr Topolanek's Civic Democrats (ODS) in opinion polls.

That would leave Prague ill-prepared to deal with the fall-out from the economic downturn, which is hitting the export-orientated Czech economy with increasing force. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Zdenek Tuma, the governor of the Czech central bank, said the economy could shrink by as much as 2 per cent this year if the situation did not improve in western Europe.

Mr Topolanek had resisted calls to increase spending, arguing that the government did not have the wherewithal to bail the country out of the recession. However, that approach was unpopular with the left-leaning Social Democrats, and helped galvanise opposition.

The final straw was a domestic political scandal relating to accusations of inappropriate pressure to force a television station to stop a story criticising an opposition MP who had joined the government side.

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住友化学、世界最大級のプラント稼働へ　国内再編機運高まる
2009.3.25 21:35

　住友化学がサウジアラビアの国営企業サウジ・アラムコと合弁で進める世界最大級の石油化学コンビナートが３月末にも本格稼働する。総投資額が１兆円にのぼる巨大事業で、住化では現地で生産した石油化学製品をアジア地域で４月から販売する計画だ。ただ、世界的な景気低迷下での新規の設備稼働となるため、赤字操業が続く日本の化学メーカーにとって市況面で打撃となる事態も予想される。すでに化学業界では競争激化に備え、一部製品の生産から撤退する動きも出ており、新たな再編の引き金になる可能性もある。

　同社の米倉弘昌社長は、今回のサウジ合弁事業の意義について「当社が石油化学事業を始めて以来の大きな存在になる」と期待をかける。産油国で石化製品を現地生産するため、原料となるナフサ（粗製ガソリン）を輸入品の１０分の１から２０分の１という低価格で調達でき、コスト競争力が飛躍的に高まるからだ。

　また、このプラントは生産規模でも世界最大級であり、石化製品の基礎原料であるエチレンについては国内工場の約３・５倍となる年１３０万トン、プロピレンも年９０万トンそれぞれ生産する計画で、生産拡大に伴うコスト削減も見込める。

　住化では「早期の高稼働率の確保が可能」（野崎邦夫執行役員）とみており、本格稼働に合わせて中国をはじめとするアジア諸国に製品を供給する。

　ただ、昨年後半からの世界的な景気悪化を受け、ナフサ原料となる原油価格は急落している。。住化関係者は「原油価格が１バレル＝２５ドルになっても採算は取れる」と強気の構えだが、この石化合弁は、中東地域で今後相次いで誕生する大型コンビナートとの競争にもさらされる。

　一方、国内の化学各社に与える影響も大きい。旧式のエチレン設備を使用する国内各社の生産能力は平均年５０万トン規模に過ぎない。需要減に伴って減産も続いており、各社とも赤字操業を強いられているのが現状だ。

　このため、三井化学では中東産の石化製品の流入を懸念し、ポリエステル繊維原料の生産を今年１１月に一部停止する。三菱化学も「日本のエチレン生産能力の３分の１が過剰になる可能性がある」とみており、茨城県の鹿島、岡山県の水島にあるエチレンプラントをめぐり、石油元売り各社も巻き込んだ形で統廃合を模索している。（飯田耕司）

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正社員一部は賃下げし契約社員を全員正社員化、広島電鉄（1/2ページ）

2009年3月25日

　広島市内などで路面電車や路線バスを運行している広島電鉄（本社・広島市）の労働組合「私鉄中国地方労働組合広島電鉄支部」は２５日、契約社員を全員正社員化し、賃金も引き上げて正社員と一本化することで会社側と合意したと発表した。組合員の同意を得て０９年度の早い時期からの実施を目指す。一部の正社員は賃下げになる。同社のような千人規模の企業でのこうした取り組みは珍しく、雇用形態による労働条件の格差を解消するモデルケースとして注目されそうだ。

　同支部によると、同社は０１年以降、バス、電車の運転士や車掌の採用を、１年ごとに更新する契約社員に限っており、現在約１５０人が在籍している。月額賃金は運転士２３万１千円、車掌１９万６５００円で、何年勤めても昇給はない。また、約１０４０人いる正社員のうち１５０人は、契約社員から正社員に登用された「正社員２」という雇用形態で、労働条件は契約社員と同じ。昇給のある正社員と比べると賃金は平均で月額５万円程度低かった。

　新しい制度では、年功と能力を加味して昇給する賃金制度に一本化し、定年も５年延長して６５歳とする。一方で、以前から正社員として勤務している３００人弱のベテラン社員は賃金が月額５万～６万円下がるため、調整給を支給しながら１０年間でゆるやかに減額する。

　同支部は契約社員も労組員として正式加盟しており、０６年から契約社員の正社員化と賃金制度の統一を求めて会社側と交渉を始めた。しかし、給与の原資は限られ、賃金の一本化でベテラン正社員の賃金が下がるケースが出てくることから交渉は難航。今回、組合員の収入減が緩和されたことや、会社側も乗務員の勤労意欲が高まり、より安全な運行が確保できるメリットがあることから合意に至った。

　佐古正明委員長は「（契約社員としてだけ採用する状況を）放置しておけば、ほとんどの乗務員が低い賃金水準になってしまう。統一によって賃金が下がる正社員の組合員からは厳しい意見も予想されるが、大局的にご理解をいただきたい」と話している。

　全国のバス、鉄道など２３１労組が加盟する私鉄総連によると、私鉄業界で非正規社員を正社員にして賃金制度を統一するケースは珍しい。私鉄総連は０３年、非正規社員を３年で正社員にすることを運動方針に掲げ、各労組に呼びかけてきた。藤井一也書記長は「契約社員が労組に入っていない会社が多い。各企業の経営体力の問題もあり、進んでいないのが現状だ」と話している。

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　〈脇田滋・龍谷大教授（労働法）の話〉　労働者全体の利益を考えて、一番弱い非正社員の労働条件を引き上げた広島電鉄労組の取り組みは、労働運動のあるべき方向性を示す事例だ。非正社員を守れなければ結局は正社員も守れないことを認識し、賃金格差を是正した点を評価したい。ただ、欧州諸国では、派遣社員を含めて企業の枠を超えた「同一労働、同一賃金」の原則が貫かれている。日本でも産業全体の連帯を考えていく必要がある。

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　〈非正規労働者の問題に詳しい村田浩治弁護士の話〉　労働者の少ない小規模企業では、非正規社員を正社員化し、その分、正社員の賃金レベルを下げる取り組みが少しずつ出始めているが、広島電鉄のような規模の企業では珍しい。

　ただ、こうした動きを経営者側が主導すると「実質的な一律賃金カットだ」との反発を労働者から受ける可能性もある。会社としても容易に進められる話ではないだけに、今回、労組が合意に応じた点に大きな意味があると思う。

　雇用が流動化し、不況が深刻化する中で、労組の役割も変化している。既存の正社員だけで利益を分け合う従来の姿勢から脱し、正社員の「いす」自体を増やす方向にかじを切る必要があり、そうした動きを主導すべきだ。