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2012 July 25 - 31 [LABOR]

Workers protest against electronics companies’ massive job cuts

July 28, 2012
Workers in the electronics manufacturing sector held actions, including publicity campaigns and a petition to the labor ministry, in protest against major electronics makers’ massive job-cut plans.

Major electronics manufacturers since 2011 have announced one after another restructuring plans in which 110,000 workers will lose their jobs.

Renesas Electronics Corporation on July 3 announced that it plans to eliminate 14,000 jobs within 3 years through liquidation or sale of 12 out of 19 domestic factories.

On July 18, the Electric Labor and Industry Correspondence (ELIC) group, which is organized by electronics industry workers, and a labor union which accepts individual workers in electronics and information industries, held a publicity action in front of a local office of Renesas in Tokyo’s Kodaira City. They distributed to workers leaflets opposing the company’s restructuring plan.

Taniguchi Toshio, a representative of the ELIC branch in Renesas, appealed to passers-by to support their struggle in order to have the company fulfill its social responsibility to maintain jobs and contribute to the local economy, explaining that the Kodaira City mayor is also calling on the company to reconsider the plan.

At the NEC Corporation, which plans to dismiss 90,000 workers at the end of September, workers are being forced to accept early retirement.

The company repeatedly had a private interview with the workers targeted in the dismissal plan and threatened them by saying, “There is no job available for you.” The Rengo-affiliated NEC workers’ union accepted the company’s job-cut plan and even participated in a private interview regarding forcible retirement.

The cornered workers ask ELIC for help.

ELIC and the union for individual workers in electronics and information industries on July 27 urged the labor ministry to instruct NEC to stop forcing workers to resign. Japanese Communist Party parliamentarian Tamura Tomoko joined them.
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