Japan Press Weekly

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2010 May 12 - 18 [YOUTH]

5,200 youth rally for better working conditions

Participants gathering from all 47 prefectures throughout Japan gave warm applause to each speaker who reported on their unionized efforts to correct major companies’ use of workers as “disposable labor”.

Reporting on his struggle against NEC Semiconductors’ dismissal of temporary employees, Shibata Katsuyuki from Kumamoto Prefecture said, “Since I joined a local union, I have received much support from colleagues throughout the country, and my feeling of desperation has turned into hope.”

Kawamoto Takeshi, who is striving to achieve direct employment from Panasonic Wakasa Division in Fukui Prefecture, criticized the Worker Dispatch Law as allowing selfish corporate practices and stressed the need to revise it.

Executive director of the Anti-Poverty Network Utsunomiya Kenji, who recently became the president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, stated that poverty is the main human rights issue. Anti-Poverty Network Secretary General Yuasa Makoto and National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) President Daikoku Sakuji also spoke.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo in his speech expressed the JCP’s solidarity with young workers’ struggles.

The rally adopted a resolution demanding the following things: drastic revision of the Worker Dispatch Law; improvement of social security programs; a raise in the minimum hourly wage to 1,000 yen; eradication of unpaid overtime work, long working hours, and excessive workloads; and creation of job opportunities.

Participants after the rally marched in demonstration holding handmade banners and posters.

The rally’s organizing committee consists of Zenroren’s youth division, the Tokyo Metropolitan Youth Union, and the Democratic Youth League of Japan.

Representatives of the organizing committee on May 17 made representations to the Labor Ministry, calling on the government to realize the demands expressed in the resolution.
- Akahata, May 17 and 18, 2010