Japan Press Weekly

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2012 October 10 - 16 [LABOR]

Union members win regular positions

All union members who were working as contract workers at a subcontractor of Toyota Motor Corporation have won regular positions.

Koyo Sealing Techno Co., Tokushima Prefecture, employed its last 2 contract workers as regular employees at the end of September, and now all 43 union members at the company have become permanent workers.

Koyo is one of the sub-subcontractors of Toyota. Koyo “contracted” its work out to another subcontractor and made the subcontractor’s employees work under the direction of Koyo.

In that situation, the subcontractor’s workers are legally considered to be temporary workers dispatched to Koyo. To avoid the application of the Worker Dispatching Act, which requires employers to hire temporary workers as regular employees after the fulfillment of a certain term of contract, Koyo had insisted that there were no direct relations between those workers and the company.

Workers of Koyo’s subcontractor formed a trade union affiliated with the All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers’ Union (JMIU) in September 2004. The union members condemned Koyo for breaking the law, requesting it to employ them as permanent workers. They have gone on 24-hour strikes three times in the last 5 years.

Most of the members are young and have been working for 7 to 16 years for Koyo. Their average annual income was no more than 2 million yen as contract workers, however, it doubled as regular employees.

Union chair Kurosaka Kazuya, 32, said, “Our union’s struggle was fully rewarded at last. I will work harder so that the employees can work through until their retirement without the fear of losing their jobs.”