January 17, 2009

Japanese Communist Party on January 16 called on the Democratic, Social Democratic, and People’s New parties to hold a meeting to discuss ways to have the labor laws, including the Worker Dispatch Law, fundamentally revised.

At a news conference later in the day, JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi said, “We received positive responses to our proposal to start discussing this issue. I want to arrange a meeting of policy officials of the four opposition parties as soon as possible.”

Ichida also stressed that the problem of massive dismissals of temporary and other contingent workers must be dealt with.

Ichida cited the following three points that need to be addressed without delay:
(1) Help laid-off temporary and fixed-term contract workers find jobs and secure their living;
(2) Consider taking urgent steps to prevent employers from dismissing more contingent workers, since government data show that as many as 85,000 contingent workers are expected to lose their jobs by the end of March;
(3) Begin discussing the fundamental revision of the Worker Dispatch Law.

The secretaries general of the four opposition parties at a meeting in May last year agreed to hold discussions on revising the Worker Dispatch Law.