Japan Press Weekly

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2012 May 30 - June 5 [LABOR]

Part-time workers’ unions discuss better job conditions

About 880 union representatives of contingent workers, including part-timers and temps, gathered together in Okayama City on June 2-3 to discuss ways to create better workplaces.

On behalf of the organizers, president of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) Daikoku Sakuji exclaimed to participants, “Let’s work hard to create job security, equal treatment, and decent work in cooperation with full-time workers!”

A delegate of the Co-op Yamaguchi workers union reported that the union increased the unionization rate among part-timers to 61% from 40% a decade ago in the course of the union’s efforts to work for extensions of contract periods and a wage hike.

A member of a hospital workers’ union from Hokkaido said that the union won a pay-raise system as a result of the twofold increase in the number of union members of part-timers to 12.

Another union member from Okayama reported that about 90 out of 180 Japanese Brazilians who were dispatched to an iron casting factory joined the union and went on strike which resulted in the cancellation of an allowance cut.

Those who are currently fighting in court against Mazda, Isuzu, Nissan, Panasonic, NEC, and Daikin Industries (an air-conditioner maker) took part in a workshop session focusing on dismissals of contingent workers.