Unionized workers win direct employment over illegally disguised employment

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Unionized workers win direct employment over illegally disguised employment

Those workers who have worked for years at a Toyota Motor-affiliated auto parts maker but who were nonetheless denied to be formally employed by the company have recently won direct employment as a result of the unionized workers' tenacious struggle demanding that the company employ them directly.

By designating temporary workers as contracted-out employees, companies try to evade their responsibilities for providing the workers with adequate working conditions as well as for directly employing them as required by law, while making them engage in the same work as full-time workers for a long period of time. Such a method of employment is illegal, but it is rampant even in large corporations.

The All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers' Union (JMIU) on September 1 announced that the contingent workers at Koyo Sealing Techno Co. in Tokushima Prefecture, who had formed a union and joined the JMIU, reached an agreement with the company that the company employs directly 59 workers and provides them with chances to be promoted as permanent employees.

JMIU representative Yamamoto Zengoro said, "This victory will encourage other workers throughout Japan who are suffering from similar working conditions."

Yabe Hiroshi, a Koyo worker, said, "Two thirds of the contingent workers and more than half of the union members at Koyo remain not employed by the company. I will work harder to demand that the company directly hire them."

Young workers who have been forced to work as "disguised contract workers" at Koyo have the same ability as Koyo's permanent employees, but earn only two million yen a year, which is less than half of the salary of permanent employees.

Two years ago, these young people established a union but the company has kept refusing to enter into collective bargaining.

Their persistent struggle and the support given to them by the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), labor unions, and democratic organizations as well as the activities of the Japanese Communist Party repeatedly taking up this issue at the Diet opened the way for direct employment.
- Akahata, September 2, 2006