Japan Press Weekly

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2008 September 24 - 30 [LABOR]

Electronics workers call for Worker Dispatch Law to be reviewed

A group of workers in electrical industries held its 21st annual general assembly on September 20-21 in Tokyo, calling for eliminating discrimination between full-time and part-time and other contingent workers.

The group, called the conference of workers in electrical industries, is composed of workers at electronics makers, where the trade unions are affiliated with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) and do not represent the workers’ basic interests.
Speaking on behalf of the Conference, Imai Setsuo referred to the recent struggle of workers at Matsushita Plasma Display Co., Ltd. as well as at Toshiba against the use of temporary workers disguised as independent contractors and against corporate restructuring, and calling for a complete review of the Worker Dispatch Law.

An action program pointed out that Japan’s major electronics manufacturers have been making record profits by replacing full-time workers with contingent workers and by increasing workloads under the performance-based pay system aimed at keeping wages as low as possible.

Secretary General Taniguchi Toshio in an action program called for increasing the struggle against corporate cost-cutting restructuring schemes through spin-offs, closures and consolidations. He called for further efforts to urge management to give temporary and other contingent workers full-time positions and review the performance-based pay system.

In the discussion, an NEC worker reported that a worker who read a handbill calling for a struggle against forced retirement by NEC, withdrew his letter of resignation.

A worker at a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. in Aichi Prefecture stated that he has been calling on part-timers and other contingent workers to oppose Hitachi’s scrap-and-merger strategy forcing subsidiaries to cut jobs.

An Oki worker said that his fellow workers are demanding that Oki ensure legal labor conditions of workers at an outsourced semiconductor section.

Speaking about a struggle that forced the company to discontinue the use of temporary workers disguised as independent contractors, a Toshiba worker said that temporary workers are kept at a low rate of pay and that the rate of accidents is higher in their workplaces. “In the next phase of our struggle, we will demand that Toshiba reemploy temporary workers as full-time workers when their contracts expire in December 2009, he added.