Japan Press Weekly

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2007 August 1 - 21 [LABOR]

Temp agency Fullcast ordered to suspend business

The Tokyo Labor Bureau on August 3 ordered major temp agency Fullcast Co. to suspend its business nationwide for a month on the grounds that the company has repeatedly had temporary workers engaged in activities prohibited by the Workers Dispatch Law such as goods transport in port areas.

In August 2006, Fullcast was advised by the Kanagawa Labor Bureau to improve its operations but failed to follow the instruction. In March, the Tokyo Labor Bureau ordered it to improve its operations because the bureau found that the company had dispatched workers in violation of the law at its 53 offices across the country.

Despite all warnings, Fullcast’s three offices in Kobe City in May sent six workers to Kobe Port.

Founded in 1992, Fullcast reported 90.1 billion yen of consolidated sales in the business year ending in September in 2006 and has 1.74 million registered temp workers.

Fullcast has continued to conduct the illegal practice, because recipient corporations, being fully aware of the illegality, are willing to use temp workers to take advantage of their low wages.

In dealing with the illegal disguised contract labor, while punishing those companies that hire temporary workers to send them to other companies, the Labor Ministry failed to punish the recipient corporations such as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Canon Inc. This labor policy is partly to blame for creating the “working poor.”

Behind the rampant illegal labor practice is the series of deregulations that the government has carried out at the beck and call of ruling circles as seen in the 1999 liberalization of dispatching workers that used to be limited to specialist jobs and the 2003 extension to manufacturing industries.

In order to solve the problem, the Worker Dispatch Law must be drastically revised so that it will protect the rights of temporary workers. The use of temporary workers should be limited to genuinely temporary jobs. At the same time, it is important to establish rules to oblige employers to treat non-regular workers equally with regular workers and provide opportunities for non-regular workers to become regular workers. - Akahata, August 4, 2007