Japan Press Weekly

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2018 December 12 - 18 [LABOR]

Mass dismissals of foreign workers at Sharp plant is illegal: JCP Koike

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira points out that the recently-revealed tactics of using foreign workers at a Sharp factory are in violation of the Worker Dispatching Act aimed at ensuring job stability for temporary workers.

Koike on December 13 interviewed Labor Ministry officials about this issue in the ministry building. The officials in charge avoided responding to this point made by Koike.

At Sharp's Kameyama Plant (Mie Pref.), as many as 3,000 foreign workers were dismissed in this year alone. Many of them were temporary workers, and their staffing agencies were frequently changed without workers' knowledge. They, however, kept working the same job at the same factory. Also, many of them had to work under 2-month contracts.

Koike said, "Legally, isn’t this a problem? If not, then it means that the Worker Dispatching Act is a watered-down law with many flaws in it."

Koike also said that he heard from sources at the factory that some foreign workers were told by their staffing agencies that 'unemployment insurance would cost money' and thus they have been left uninsured.

What is more, Koike pointed out that mistakes occur often when converting foreign names into Japanese phonetic characters, and that just one different letter creates a different employee. If this happens, this worker will become a new employee, and accordingly her/his unemployment insurance data will no longer be available despite her/his continuous employment.

Koike demanded that the Labor Ministry establish a task force without delay to deal with this problem.

Past related article:
> A Sharp factory in Japan fired 3K foreign workers within one year [December 5, 2018]