  Corporate productivity-first orders cause tragic accidents -- Akahata editorial, August 8As the heat wave continues, work-related accidents are increasing, including heatstroke cases. Even during a "work safety week" in July, two workers were killed and two more seriously injured in an accident at the Kure plant of a subsidiary of Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries in Hiroshima Prefecture. Many explosions, fires, and fatal accidents occurred at plants last year. More than three workers were killed at a time in 249 major accidents, the worst rate of death since 1979. This year's casualties as of the end of April, including deaths and injuries which required more than four days off from work, are over 15,000, greater than the year before. This means that 127 workers on average per day were injured. Corporate restructuring neglectful of safety Why do work-related accidents occur despite many calls to eliminate them? This is because large corporations chant "safety first", but their profit-first corporate restructuring allows them to cut personnel to the extreme, even at the cost of safety. Okuda Hiroshi, president of the Japan Business Federation (JBF or Nippon Keidanren) and Toyota Motors chair, last year acknowledged that excessive corporate restructuring has led to increasing workplace accidents, saying, "Displacing skilled workers will lower the quality of labor. Restructuring has cost-saving merits, but it also has dangerous consequences." A Toyota worker was crushed to death in May while he was working on the maintenance of a machine. Workers in anger suspect that the cause of the accident can be a speed-up driven under the productivity-first slogan. The government has acknowledged that corporate restructuring has adverse effects. An inter-government agency council on the prevention of industrial accidents last December requested the oil, tire, and steel industries to take disaster-preventive steps. The council pointed out that safety regulations will be degraded if corporations haphazardly promote restructuring in an exclusive pursuit of higher productivity. It stands to reason that the council stressed the responsibility of top management, saying that their perception and willingness is very important in securing safety at work. (end) |