Japan Press Weekly

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2008 August 20 - 26 [LABOR]

Contingent workers’ group urges Labor Ministry to regulate use of temps disguised as independent contractors

A group of workers who have exposed the illegal uses of temporary workers under the guise of independent contractors on August 21 requested the Labor Ministry to urge companies to put such workers on its payroll as full-time workers.

Shimamoto Makoto, a member of the “Whistleblowers’ Network for Contingent Workers Disguised as Independent Contractors,” visited the ministry and criticized the government failure to give guidance conducive to his company’s direct employment of temporary workers like him, even though he may lose the present job as a temporary worker at the end of September. He has been a temporary worker at Nichia Corporation, a Tokushima-based manufacturer of fine chemicals, particularly light-emitting, inorganic luminescent (phosphors) materials like LEDs.
At the ministry Shimamoto said, “Is this the ministry’s way to achieve stable employment?”
While the Labor Ministry official said that it gives job security priority, he also stated that direct employment is one of the steps to induce companies to correct their illegal labor practices.

Japanese Communist Party members of the House of Councilors Koike Akira and Daimon Mikishi as well as Diet members of the Democratic and the Social Democratic parties took part in the meeting.

Koike said that the Tokushima Labor Bureau’s attitude is unacceptable because it recognized Nichia Corp’s use of “disguised contract work” as illegal.

Daimon said that the extensive use of “disguised independent contractors” is the Labor Ministry’s fault. - Akahata, August 22, 2008