Local electronics workers fighting against parent company's 'busting' tactics

A hundred workers at Takamisawa Electric Company's Shinshu Plant in Saku City, Nagano Prefecture have no job to do these days because of a company policy of running at only 10 percent of its capacity that results in a 30 to 50 million yen deficit per month.

"The parent company Fujitsu Ltd. has deprived us of our jobs. It wants to wreck our company by deliberately bringing about deficits," said a worker serving for 35 years in the plant.

Aimed at destroying Takamisawa's trade union affiliated with the All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers' Union (JMIU), its parent company Fujitsu in March 1999 proposed that the Shinshu plant be closed and all its workers be dismissed.

Fujitsu proposed that those who wanted to continue working can be re-employed by its subsidiary Chikuma Communication Industry. The Takamisawa employees' union accepted this offer, although this will mean 40 percent wage cuts and 200 more annual working hours per worker.

Rejecting the offer as seriously worsening working conditions, 100 members of the JMIU Takamisawa Branch decided to remain in the plant.

The Takamisawa Electric Company was established in 1917 as an electronic device manufacturer with 3,000 employees.

In September 2001, Fujitsu established a holding company and shifted Takamisawa's key sections of sales, technical development, and quality control to the new company. The move was for Fujitsu to bust the union and take the cream of Takamisawa. Only the Shinshu Plant with 100 workers and a head office with four workers were left at Takamisawa.

In opposition to Fujitsu's attempted takeover of Takamisawa, the 100 workers as JMIU members have been struggling for three years. (end)