Child-rearing cabin attendants request labor ministry to instruct JAL to stop pay cuts

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Child-rearing cabin attendants request labor ministry to instruct JAL to stop pay cuts

Japan Airlines (JAL) cabin attendants on February 26 requested the Labor Ministry to instruct the company to stop its unfair treatment against those who had applied for exemption from night shifts based on the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law.

JAL has given these cabin attendants only one or two days of duty a month in exchange for acceptance of their application, and regarded their off duty days as days without pay, which causes a drastic decrease in their salaries.

Demanding the payment of wages for the deprived work days, these workers filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court. The ruling will be issued on March 26.

At the meeting, their lawyers requested ministry officials to make on-site inspections to investigate JAL's night-shift exemption system; instruct the company to abolish the system of "no-pay days" and to rectify the system; and require it to fulfill its corporate responsibility in dealing with the falling birthrate.

Plaintiff Muranaka Yoshimi said, "Because of financial difficulties and emotional stress, I had to give up working full-time. How can the company deprive us of work in disregard of the law?"

A ministry official replied, "The law does not require employers to assign employees daytime shifts instead of night shifts."

Pointing out that the company practice goes against the law that aims at enabling people to work without conflicting with family life, the plaintiffs' legal team criticized the ministry for leaving the matter as it is.

Japanese Communist Party House of Councilors member Yoshikawa Haruko and Social Democratic Party Chair Fukushima Mizuo accompanied them to the meeting.
- Akahata, February 27, 2007