Part-time workers act to win decent wages

About 1,600 part-time and other contingent workers held a rally at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo on February 13 to demand decent wages, equal treatment with full-time workers, and an end to employers' arbitrary termination of job contracts.

Organized by the National Trade Union Confederation (Zenroren) and the Joint Committee for the 2004 People's Spring Struggle, the action included petitions to Dietmembers of the Japanese Communist Party (which has proposed a bill calling for equal treatment between full-time and part-time workers), and to the ministries and agencies concerned.

"For an hourly wage of 1,000 yen or more to all workers" and "For wages that can support our living" are the slogans that many participants wrote on their placards.

Zenroren President Bannai Mitsuo in a speech said that achieving these demands of contingent workers share something in common with the demands of all workers.

Various workers' struggles were reported, including one in which municipal workers prevented the contracts with part-time workers from being ended and others in which workers were paid for their unpaid overtime work or took paid holidays.

A woman, 27, who works as a child care worker in Hokkaido, said, "I've been working for six years under a one-year contract, and the wage gap widens each year with full-time staff doing the same job as I do."

As a reflection of the present state of affairs in which many women have to work as temporary workers, women predominated in the demonstration walk. (end)