Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2009 March 11 - 17 [LABOR]

Young workers stand up against Sony subsidiary

Twenty-one young workers, who had been working for a Sony subsidiary, have joined a labor union and are demanding that their employers withdraw their dismissals.

The workers, who are in their 20s and 30s, used to work for the Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corporation factory located in Isahaya City, Nagasaki Pref., as independent contractors sent by the staffing agency World Intec Co., Ltd. “Sony is a stable enterprise,” so this was the reason they had chosen the Sony affiliate to work at, but late January the agency laid them off because of the shutdown of a factory line.

One of these workers, then, went to the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren)-affiliated Nagasaki Prefectural Federation of Trade Unions (Nagasaki-roren) for advice. There he learned that their dismissals were a case of an unfair labor practice falling short of the “four requirements for dismissing workers” established by judicial precedents of the Supreme Court: necessity of dismissal, efforts to avoid dismissal, rationality in selecting who is to be dismissed, and having discussions with workers.

Before talking with the Nagasaki-roren, they knew nothing about what “unions” actual do. But they decided to unite and formed a Nagasaki-roren affiliated group.

One said, “When we joined the union, we were shocked to learn of our unfair layoffs. None of us knew anything about legal matters, but now we’ll no longer accept.”

With support from Zenroren and Nagasaki-roren, the group conducted a collective bargaining with World Intec. While admitting its failure to meet the “four requirements,” the staffing agency did nothing and dodged its responsibility. The agency even had no intention to pay them dismissal compensation.

So, the group on February 26 reported to the Nagasaki Labor Bureau that their work at the Sony-affiliated factory was disguised contract work in violation of the Worker Dispatch Law, and demanded that the bureau advise Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corporation to directly hire them as full-time regular employees.

On paper, they were independent contractors sent by the staffing agency, but they actualylly worked under the control of the Sony factory. This is exactly the definition of disguised contract labor which is against the law. In addition, some of them had been forced to work for more than three years, the maximum period of contract for temporary labor stipulated by the law. One of the workers actually worked for 9.5 years.

With nearly 100 supporters, these young workers stood in front of the factory gate, holding a banner reading, “Sony, admit of your illegal contract work and directly hire us!” “Sony has used the illegal disguised contract to boost its profits by exploiting us.”