Japan Press Weekly

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2009 June 3 - 9 [LABOR]

Fixed-term contract workers sue Canon

Five fixed-term contract workers at Canon’s Utsunomiya Optical Products Plant in Tochigi Prefecture filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court on June 3 demanding that the company offer them full-time positions. They are members of Canon’s contingent workers’ union.

At a news conference on the same day, the plaintiffs said the company has used them as temporary workers sent in from a staffing agency, sometimes disguising them as independent contractors in order to evade the legal responsibility of offering them direct employment after three years.

The Canon Contingent Workers’ Union in 2006 exposed the company’s illegal use of temporary workers in the guise of “independent contractors”. After the Tochigi Labor Bureau instructed the company to end the illegal labor practice in 2007, the five workers were employed directly by Canon as “fixed-term contract workers” from October of the same year.

The union accepted the offer of direct employment by reserving the right to demand that Canon offer them full-time positions.

However, in March, fixed-term contract workers were laid off under the pretext of declines in production and paid only half of their monthly salary, causing deep anxieties about their livelihoods and possible dismissals. This prompted them to file the lawsuit against the company.

The Canon Contingent Workers’ Union Utsunomiya branch chair Ono Hideyuki criticized Canon for refusing to negotiate with them over their demand for full-time positions and laying them off with the aim of destroying the union