December 25, 2012

It has been 27 years since the enactment of the equal employment opportunity law. Gender gaps in wages and promotions still exist in many workplaces. Journalist Takenobu Mieko, a professor at Wako University, on December 25 talked to an Akahata reporter on subsequent developments following the passage of this law as follows:

The job equality law came into force in 1985 in exchange for relaxing the regulations to protect women, lifting the ban on female workers’ overtime work and late-night shifts. The law, on the other hand, left the additional burden of housework and child-rearing on women along with long work hours on men. Many women raising children were forced to give up their full-time employment positions.

The same year, the Worker Dispatch Law took effect ostensibly as a bridge for women who found it difficult balancing work with family responsibilities. It is essential for working people to be fully employed and to have the guaranteed right to labor-management negotiations in order to make future plans, but it is the worker dispatching undertakings that removed these essentials.

In 1995, the former Japanese Employers’ Federation (Nikkeiren), a predecessor of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), categorized working people into three groupings: a core category of workers on career tracks with full-time positions, professionals on limited contracts as long as are needed, and non-regular workers like part-timers and temps on low-paying flexible employment.

At that time, less than 10% of male and 40% of female workers had non-regular positions.

In the late 1990s, associated with rise of corporate downsizing, even young workers began fell into the category of non-regular employment. In 2003, the relevant law expanded worker dispatching services to the manufacturing sector, pushing the ratio of non-regular male workers to more than 20% in 2011.

One half of all female workers now work in non-regular employment, though the name of their positions may differ. Some are designated as part-timers, while others as temps or contract staff. All these positions are in the category of low-paying unstable employment. An increase in the number of this overall group has caused the current state of society in which the profits corporations make do not circulate to the workers themselves.

Some European countries have adopted regulations on working hours common to both men and women so that both genders can participate in child-rearing and housework. Such laws apply also to non-regular workers based on the same-job same-pay principle. It is important for Japan to make similar laws as well so working people will be able to lead decent lives.