Workers sit in to demand a change in law to protect temps

Japan Press Weekly

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

Workers sit in to demand a change in law to protect temps

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) and the Joint Committee for the People’s Spring Struggle on May 19 held a rally in Tokyo to demand a drastic revision of the Worker Dispatch Law and an increase in the legal minimum wage.

About 1,500 workers paraded through government office quarters in Kasumigaseki and held a sit-in protest in front of the Diet building.

At the rally, Zenroren President Daikoku Sakuji called for the continued struggle to achieve a substantial increase in the legal minimum wage. Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi said, “Let’s achieve a drastic change in the Worker Dispatch Law to have temporary workers become regular employees!”

A non-regular worker at Canon Inc. said that the government amendment bill fails to guarantee workers regular employee status even if their position as contract workers in disguise is acknowledged. A woman working for the Japanese Red Cross Society said, “We can’t allow the loopholes of the 26 ‘special category’ jobs to be exempted from regulation. We want that there should be no more dismissals of temporary workers.”

As part of the Zenroren central action, a group of workers in Tokyo held a news conference to demand a drastic revision of the Worker Dispatch Law because the government bill for revising the law is full of loopholes and cannot effectively protect workers.

- Akahata, May 20, 2010