structural reform

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Koizumi 'reform' is widening social gaps
Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The Koizumi Cabinet is now desperately trying to deny the seriously widening income gap and increased poverty.

Nakagawa Hidenao, Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council chair, cited the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's monthly labor survey showing a 0.5 percent increase in the number of employed workers in 2005 from the year before as proof of the increasing number of "regular employees."

However, the HL&W figures include those of non-regular workers.

An Internal Affairs and Communication Ministry survey providing figures for regular employees and non-regular workers separately shows that the number of regular employees showed a sharp decline after the start of the Koizumi Cabinet, marking a reversal in the preceding slightly upward trend. During the five years up to August 2005, the number of regular employees decreased by 3.23 million, while non-regular workers increased by 3.37 million.

The wage level for non-regular workers has been kept extremely low.

At a Toyota-group subsidiary, contract workers who are doing the same job as regular employees are paid only 30 percent of what their counterparts are paid in hourly wages.

When the Koizumi Cabinet was inaugurated, Ushio Jiro, special advisor to the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) said in the government Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) meeting: "The contract-worker system needs to be expanded to cover manufacturing industries in all fields. By replacing the old system with a new one by hiring workers on short-term contracts or through staffing agencies, wages will go down."

The increase in unstable jobs has added to low income earners' difficulties. Their disposable income is squeezed due to the series of adverse revision of social services systems, and tax increases under the regressive tax system and fiscal systems that give tax breaks to large corporations and to the wealthy.

The "economic recovery" that the cabinet is boasting is the result of its "reform" policy represents a distorted structure in which big business heavily depends on increasing demands in the United States and China, siphoning incomes from households, and making record profits.

The more the Koizumi cabinet promotes its "reform," the more distorted the economic structure will become and the more widespread poverty and social disparities will become. It is time for the Koizumi Cabinet to admit to the serious situation of its own making.
- Akahata, February 9, 2006