Japan Press Weekly

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2022 July 20 - 26 [LABOR]

Scientific journal Nature covers Tamura’s Diet efforts to protect non-regular researchers from massive dismissal

The world’s most prestigious journal in science, Nature, recently carried an article which gave attention to Japanese Communist Party parliamentarian Tamura Tomoko’s Diet efforts regarding the issue of a massive dismissal of non-regular researchers at Japan's national universities and research institutes.

Under the Labor Contract Act, researchers on fixed-term contracts will be allowed to claim their right to convert their employment contracts to open-ended ones after ten years of service. However, national universities and research institutes with the aim of evading the law intend to dismiss fixed-term contract research staff whose service duration will reach ten years next April.

The July 19 issue of Nature carried an article focusing on this issue. In the article, JCP Tamura was introduced as a lawmaker who repeatedly raised this issue in the Diet and urged the government to work to protect non-regular researchers from unfair dismissals.

The article reported on Tamura’s estimate showing that up to 4,500 non-regular researchers at national universities and research institutes may lose their jobs by the end of March 2023, and wrote that this would bring about a negative impact in the nation’s research field.

The article pointed out that cuts in state subsidies that cover the operational costs of national universities and research institutes lie behind the massive dismissal issue, and added that the JCP parliamentarian requested the government to withdraw its subsidy cut policy without delay.

Along with Tamura, the journal quoted the chair of a labor union at the National Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Kanai Yasuyuki, as saying that a unilateral dismissal of non-regular researchers will definitely lead to a decline in Japan’s scientific research capacity in the long run.

Past related article:
> 4,500 non-regular researchers at national universities and research institutes may face dismissals [May 18, 2022]