Shii exposes Toyota’s evasion of law to use temporary workers as long as it can

Japan Press Weekly

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Shii exposes Toyota’s evasion of law to use temporary workers as long as it can

At a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on October 7, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo revealed Toyota’s tricky method of evading the law to use temporary workers for more than three years as permitted by law.

Prime Minister Aso Taro stated in answer to Shii, “Based on the facts, we will respond to the issue in accordance with the law.”

The Worker Dispatch Law prohibits employers from using a temporary worker longer than three years. But there is a loophole; it allows them to employ the same temporary worker again after an interval of more than three months.

At Toyota Auto Body, a core company of the Toyota group, full-time and temporary workers are working in the same groups. The group is divided into two sub-groups that do the same tasks on different shifts.

In October, the company ordered temporary workers in group B to move to group A, leaving group B staffed only by full-time workers. After three months and a day, temporary workers in group A will be ordered to continue their work in group B.

The company explained to workers that it creates a zero-temp worker period lasting three months and a day in one group. This is how Toyota Auto Body continuously uses temporary workers by evading the relevant provisions in the Worker Dispatch Law.

Temporary workers of Toyota Auto Body receive only 200,000 yen a month, much less than what is paid to full-time for working in the same shifts. In addition, temporary workers are charged more than 50,000 yen for an apartment house provided by the staffing agency that sent them into Toyota Auto Body. More than two people are living in each tiny apartment.

Shii said, “If such labor practices are permitted, temporary workers will have to be used and disposed of forever under the cheap wage and unstable employment system. The law’s provision that imposes a three-year limit on the use of temporary workers will be a dead letter. What Toyota Auto Body is doing is clearly illegal.” He demanded that the government investigate the company’s labor practices and order it to correct them.

In the three years since 2005, the number of temporary workers at Toyota Auto Body doubled to 5,739, accounting for 26.3 percent of all workers. The company’s profits increased from 18.6 to 22.4 billion yen in the same period.

- Akahata, October 8, 2008