Japan Press Weekly

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2009 May 13 - 19 [LABOR]

Workers hold rally and demonstration calling for overhaul of Worker Dispatch Law

About 1,000 workers held a rally on May 14 at Hibiya Open-air Hall in Tokyo and marched in demonstration to the Diet calling for the Worker Dispatch Law to be drastically revised.

The Liaison Council for revision of the Worker Dispatch Law composed of various sections of trade unions and lawyers organized this action.

Kamata Satoshi and Yuasa Makoto, who led the “tent village” in central Tokyo that was established during the New Year holidays for laid off contingent workers, gave speeches.

Reports were made by ‘villagers,’ who managed to survive thanks to the “tent village,” and members of labor unions fighting as contingent workers against mass layoffs at Oita Canon, Inc., Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, Mazda Motor Corporation, Hankyu Travel, and Turkish Airlines.

One participant said, “The government must prohibit employers from using workers as disposable tools.” Another said, “We’re fighting in order to be employed as regular workers!”

Participants were determined to raise public awareness so that the four opposition parties will successfully draft a bill for a drastic revision of the Worker Dispatch Law that includes a ban on the use of temporary workers on demand.

Representatives of the Japanese Communist, Democratic, and Social Democratic parties spoke in solidarity.

JCP Chair Shii Kazuo in his speech stressed the need to campaign for a major revision of the Worker Dispatch Law simultaneously with the struggle to reject dismissals of non-regular workers as well as with the efforts to encourage them in their struggles.

Now that most corporate dismissals have been found to be in violation of the existing labor laws, struggling based on these laws will help enact new labor laws, including the complete revision of the Worker Dispatch Law, Shii added.

Shii called for changing the law to include a basic ban on the registered worker dispatch that excludes specific services, restore deleted provisions that in 1999 made worker dispatch provision applicable in every field, and ban worker dispatch in the manufacturing industry.