Japan Press Weekly

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2024 August 7 - 13 TOP3 [LABOR]

JCP Chair Tamura meets with new Zenroren leadership

Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Tamura Tomoko on August 7 received a visit from newly-elected executives of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), who were elected in last month’s Zenroren Convention, and talked with them at the JCP head office.

Zenroren President Akiyama Masaomi said, “The JCP elucidates the importance of spending more ‘free time’ that is not tied to labor,” and that Zenroren at its July Convention proposed a campaign to shorten working hours.

Tamura said, “Your proposal to realize a 7-hour workday is responding to today’s needs. It is important to implement shorter working hours in tandem with the realization of higher wages that will enable people to earn a decent living.” She expressed her respect for Zenroren’s continuous efforts to achieve a nationwide across-the-board minimum hourly wage of 1,500 yen.

Zenroren Secretary General Kurosawa Koichi said, “Zenroren places importance on dialogue. We’d like to expand the participation of more people through open-and-honest dialogue in order to create a society in which going on strike is normalized. Akiyama explained Zenroren’s efforts to expand its membership and to promote dialogues with non-regular workers in the public sector.

Tamura stated, “It is truly a Zenroren achievement to have abolished the ‘3rd-year open recruitment’ structure setting a 3-year cutoff for the employment of non-regular public employees.” Regarding struggles with strikes, she said, “I was impressed by the solidarity message sent to the Zenroren Convention from the United Auto Workers (UAW) which achieved a large wage increase for their union members in the United States.”

Past related article:
> Zenroren 32nd Convention resolves to win higher wages and shorter workweek [July 28, 2024]