Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 March 28 - April 3 [LABOR]

Loopholes on use of temps remain in new rules

A bill to supposedly regulate the “disposable use of labor” came into law on March 28 at the House of Councilors plenary session by majority vote. The Japanese Communist Party, Social Democratic, and Your parties voted against the bill.

The Upper Chamber took a vote on the bill to revise the Worker Dispatch Law after only four hours of discussion.

The original bill proposed by the government already had loopholes in it. The Democratic, Liberal Democratic, and Komei parties worked together to further weaken this bill.

They erased a regulation from the government bill banning the use of temporary workers in the manufacturing sector and further relaxed restrictions on the use of day laborers.

The new law postpones the enforcement of one regulation for another 3 years, requiring employers to directly hire temps if they are found out to be illegally supplied.

The new law shortens the period prohibiting the use of day-laborers or short-term dispatched workers from the original 2 months to 1 month.

Prior to the vote, JCP Dietmember Tamura Tomoko took the floor in opposition to the bill and stated, “As long as corporate profits are given priority over the eradication of the ‘disposable use of labor’, Japan won’t be able to avoid the collapse of job market and the continuation of the deflation spiral.”