Shii calls for a radical revision of labor laws to eradicate disposable labor

Japan Press Weekly

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Shii calls for a radical revision of labor laws to eradicate disposable labor

At a meeting on July 25 in Tokyo, arranged by a group of labor unions to help increase the struggle to get the Worker Dispatch Law drastically revised, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo said that the present need is to eradicate unstable employment that gives employers the freedom to fire workers at their will.

The main organizer of the meeting was the Japan Community Union Federation, which is made up of unions that are open to individual workers, full-time and contingent. It is campaigning for the Worker Dispatch Law to be revised in the next extraordinary Diet session in autumn.

Representatives of the Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the People’s New Party also took part in the discussion.

Shii said, “The JCP, the SDP, and the PNP share the view that the 1999 liberalization is the main source of the present problem because it allowed employers in all job categories to use temporary workers. Now the ruling parties are beginning to recognize that the liberalization of the use of temporary workers is the problem.”

As the trend is changing to tighten regulation on the use of temporary labor after many years of deregulation of the labor market, the four opposition parties have jointly proposed revising the law and the ruling bloc has had no choice but to mention the need for a ban on the use of temporary workers as day laborers.

“The revision must be drastic because the need is to guarantee every worker a decent job,” said Shii when he explained the JCP proposal for revision of the Worker Dispatch Law.

The JCP calls for the labor law to establish the principle that “the use of temporary workers should be limited to temporary or contingent labor, and should not be a substitute for regular workers.”

It also proposes including phrases in the law to the effect that “temporary workers must basically be employed as full-time workers, that the use of registered-temporary workers should be allowed only for exceptional cases, and that the dispatch of temporary workers to work sites as day-laborers should be prohibited.”

In short, Shii said, “We demand that the status quo that existed before the 1999 adverse revision of the Worker Dispatch Law be restored.”

He also proposed that the Labor Standards Law be revised in order to regulate the use of fixed-term contract labor and provide more opportunities for contingent workers to be employed as full-time workers. - Akahata, July 26, 2008