Unionists hold rally calling for job security and wage increase

Japan Press Weekly

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

Unionists hold rally calling for job security and wage increase

In front of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) head office on January 19, about 800 workers in a rally chanted, “Give internal reserves back to the people to reinvigorate the economy!”

At the start of the 2010 Spring Struggle, the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) and the Joint Committee for the People’s Spring Struggle held this action.

In the rally, Zenroren President Daikoku Sakuji said, “What the people demand is to achieve economic recovery by raising their purchasing power and to solve the issue of poverty. Increasing basic and minimum wages by using large corporations’ internal reserves is one way to boost the economy.”

On the same day, the Nippon Keidanren published its labor management policy for the 2010 spring labor-management wage talks.

In its policy, although Nippon Keidanren points to the lack of demand in the Japanese economy, it still sticks to increasing foreign demand from emerging economies, and shows its reluctance to fulfill its social responsibility to overcome the economic recession by expanding domestic demand.

Regarding the wage talks, in addition to no basic wage increases, the Nippon Keidanren intends to actually decrease wages through various ways such as a freeze on regular pay raises.

Although Nippon Keidanren stated that the government panel’s proposal for a revision of the Worker Dispatch Law which includes the principal prevention of the use of on-call day laborers should be respected, it expresses its will to oppose the governmental panel’s report under the pretext that the labor market will become unstable.

Due to the public criticism of the massive dismissals by corporations of temporary workers, Nippon Keidanren, on the one hand, said, “It is required for companies to make efforts to secure employment.” But, on the other hand, it plans to impose wage cuts on workers in the name of job security.

Stating, “Because of differences between workers’ levels of skill, equal treatment will cause a sense of unfairness,” Nippon Keidanren opposes equal treatment between full-time and part-time workers which is normal in European nations.

- Akahata, January 20, 2010