Poverty increases under DPJ gov't

Japan Press Weekly

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

Poverty increases under DPJ gov't

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

With the year's end approaching, more than three million people are still unemployed. Of them, the number of those who have been without jobs for more than one year reached 1.28 million, an increase of 330,000 from the last year and of 490,000 from the year 2008.

Two years ago, leading manufacturers such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Canon Inc. began outdoing each other in cutting the number of non-regular workers employed. Associated with a sharp decline in foreign demand caused by the global economic crisis, these companies conducted production adjustment in Japan where regulations to protect employees and subcontractors are looser than in other countries.

Large corporations' use of workers as a "disposable workforce" aroused public anger and stirred up criticism against the then ruling Liberal Democratic Party on the grounds that the LDP government had destroyed conventionally accepted work rules.

One year has passed since the Democratic Party of Japan replaced the LDP, but a move to implement decent work rules has not yet been put on the agenda. The DPJ-proposed bill to revise the controversial Worker Dispatch Law contains a lot of loopholes. The minimum wage has barely increased to 700 yen an hour, far from the 1,000 yen the DPJ promised.

The number of non-regular workers has increased by 320,000 to about 17.75 million this year. Due to the strong yen and termination of government "subsidies for eco-friendly cars", factory workers on fixed-term contracts have lost their jobs one after another. A recent labor ministry survey shows that more than 40,000 contracts were not renewed duing the last ten months alone. One fourth of the total workforce in Japan now earns less than two million yen a year.

Prime Minister Kan Naoto was saying two years ago that politicians or political parties "have a meaning to exist only when they work toward establishing a society or politics that supports those who are struggling to live." However, the number of people in distress is actually increasing under his government. What on earth does he think of this situation?

The government should ban the use of on-call contingent workers and prohibit manufacturers from using temporary workers. It should also instruct corporations to use fixed-term contract workers only for "temporary operations" and to drastically increase the hiring of regular workers.

Economic recovery and job creation can come about by boosting domestic demand and by using a part of the internal reserves amassed by large corporations to accomplish this. The need now is for the government to prohibit large corporations from unreasonably firing non-regular workers and encourage all business entities to expand contracts of direct employment without fixed terms.

- Akahata, November 26, 2010