Japan Press Weekly

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2012 April 4 - 10 [LABOR]

Union members call for end of working poor in public sector

A rally took place on April 7 in Tokyo to expose the real state of contingent workers in the public sector.

The public workers’ section and the contingent workers’ section of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) held this event with 80 union members participating.

Nomura Yukihiro, the chairperson of the public workers’ section, emphasized that people came to realize the importance of public services after experiencing the March 11 disaster. He called for the strengthening of the movement to improve the public sector’s working conditions, regardless of the type of employment and the difference in workplaces.

A member of the municipal workers’ union of Funabashi City in Chiba Prefecture pointed out that all instructors in after-school activities are contingent workers. “The shortness of their term of employment has a negative affect on the children,” she said.

A representative of the Saitama Prefectural Teachers and Staff Union reported that a contingent teacher on welfare became unemployed because he was unable to find a new workplace by the end of the fiscal year.

A member of the National Union of Welfare and Childcare Workers gave an example of a special nursing home for the aged which was recently built in Osaka. He pointed out that the nursing home was unable to open for business as it could only employ a few workers willing to work for such low wages.