Everyone has the right to work with dignity

Japan Press Weekly

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

Everyone has the right to work with dignity

Akahata editorial

The second Monday of January is "Coming-of-age Day (Seijin no hi)" in Japan. Young people at the age of 20 celebrate their reaching adulthood. In no time in the past have young people at the age of 20 celebrated this day with such deep anxieties, as students are concerned about the difficulty in finding jobs and workers feel insecure about their jobs.

A "tent village" was opened in Hibiya Park in Central Tokyo during the New Year's holidays for temporary and other contingent workers who lost their jobs and places to live in. It was actually a focus of lot of media attention during the holiday period.

Due to the economic downturn, major Japanese companies, including Toyota Motors and Canon Inc., took the lead in mass layoffs. Even full-time workers are facing dismissals. A number of companies have withdrawn job offers that were promised to students graduating from school in March.

Large corporations have made record profits. Toyota alone accumulated 14 trillion yen of internal reserves as a result of exploiting temporary and fixed-term contract workers. Once the economy began to decline, these large corporations first carried out mass layoffs of contingent workers and threw them into the streets in the dead of winter. It is inhuman and unacceptable.

Acceding to the demands of large corporations and financial circles, the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties deregulated the labor laws and replaced as many full-time workers with contingent workers as possible. The ruling parties are to blame for causing the present situation.

"Finally, workers rose in action," stated a top story of the day on NHK News, reporting that temporary and fixed-term contract workers, who worked hard with the prospect of being promoted to full-time positions at Isuzu Motor, formed their own union to fight against Isuzu's 1,400-job cut plan in December last year.

The fact that this newly established union achieved revocation of the dismissal of fixed-term contract workers during their term of contract was also reported widely.

Workers have the right to form their own labor unions and negotiate with management on an equal footing for better working conditions. Employers are not allowed to unilaterally change the working conditions in disregard of union demands. These are workers' important rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Young workers throughout Japan are further developing the encouraging current by creating or joining labor unions in order to block major corporations' authoritarian treatment of workers.

Young people have been forced to believe that they are responsible for their joblessness. The argument about "self-responsibility" has been promoted by the financial circles and large corporations, which have been making record profits by suppressing young people's wishes and driving them to compete with each other. In order for young people to be able to work with dignity, let us develop social solidarity to establish more labor unions and increase their membership.

Lower House election is coming up

The House of Representatives election will be held this year. One of the major issues is whether or not this election will be an opportunity to change labor policies to provide decent working conditions for young people. Such a change will be made possible by a vote cast by sovereign and independent-minded people, including those who have newly turned 20 years old.

The Japanese Communist Party is the only party that opposed the 1999 deregulation of the Worker Dispatch Law which lifted almost all restrictions on the use of temporary workers. Concerning the ongoing major dismissals, the JCP had meetings with representatives of the Japan Business Federation and Toyota Motors, where it demanded that major corporations fulfill their social responsibility to protect employment. At the grassroots level, about 22,000 JCP branches throughout Japan are listening to young people's concerns and demands, and trying to address them.

The JCP will continue to do its utmost to help realize young people's hopes to be able to have decent working conditions as well as to create an economic society governed by rules.

- Akahata January 12, 2009