JCP demands Transportation Ministry to direct JAL to exempt child-rearing mothers from night shift

Japan Airlines (JAL) announced a policy change on February 10 to decide cabin attendants' night shifts by lot, causing concern among those who have so far been exempted because they have small children or sick family members to take care of.

The Japanese Communist Party has called on the government to urge JAL to take steps to allow all women workers who say they can't work the night shift to be exempted in accordance with their family conditions.

On March 5, Seko Yukiko, JCP, visited the Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Ministry and said, "The promotion of a gender-equal society is a task that must be fulfilled by all government ministries. The transportation ministry should instruct JAL to stop imposing harder working conditions on women workers with small children."

Civil Aviation Bureau Director-General Hora Hayao told the JCP Diet member that he was not in a position to comment on the question, the reason being that the labor ministry is now studying the question and that it is a matter to be dealt with in negotiations between labor and management.

The JAL management seeks to reduce the number of workers who are exempt from the night shift on the grounds that the number of daytime flights, the subject to the night shift exemption, has been reduced after a business tie-up with the Japan Air System.

The JAL Cabin Attendant Union conducted a survey and found that 25 out of 32 respondents won't be able to continue working if they have to work the night shift.

A woman complained that she will have to pay more than 200,000 yen (1,800 US dollar) a month to a baby-sitter and a nursery school if she works the night shift because she has no one else to take care of her child.

Iida Sachiko, the union chair, said that JAL is introducing a system of accepting only those who can work around the clock, but such a system runs counter to the need of juggling a job and family as well as being against the law.

The union has requested the Tokyo Labor Bureau and the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry to direct JAL to cancel the plan. (end)