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Nippon Steel promises to stop discriminating against JCP members

Japan's biggest steel maker Nippon Steel Corp. (Hirohata Works in Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture) on December 27 at the Osaka High Court reached a negotiated settlement with five employees who filed a lawsuit against the company calling for damages for the company's discrimination in wages against them on the basis of their being Japanese Communist Party members.

Nippon Steel promised that it will take seriously the 2004 Kobe District Court judgment denouncing the anti-communist labor policy that the company has systematically pursued since the 1960s and stop discriminating against workers based on ideology or belief and that it will treat all employees fairly in compliance with the Constitution, the law and human rights provisions.

Previously, under the notorious anti-communist labor management policy, Nippon Steel selectively kept the wages for JCP members at the lowest levels, isolated them at workplaces, and excluded them from social events.

The five workers filed a lawsuit in 1998 calling for an end to the discrimination against them. Supporters' organizations carried out three rounds of national campaigns, and 174 NS employees and ex-employees wrote to the company president complaining that they were also discriminated against.

One of the plaintiffs, Kayashima Kazuo, 65, rejoiced over the victory after the 7-year court struggle, "It's like having flowers in full bloom all around us."

The JCP Nippon Steel Yahata Works Committee (Fukuoka Prefecture) on the same day said that the ruling will give great encouragement to struggles against discrimination in various places.
- Akahata, December 27, 2005