Japan Press Weekly

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2007 December 12 - 18 [LABOR]

Young contract workers win full-time positions

Contract workers at a Toyota Motor-affiliated auto parts supplier in Tokushima Prefecture succeeded in forcing the company to give them full-time positions after a long struggle. The All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers’ Union (JMIU) Tokushima regional branch announced the victory at news conference on December 17.

This success was achieved by young workers in their strenuous struggle at Koyo Sealing Techno (Koyo), which offered young contract workers only short-term positions contrary to their wish to work full-time.

These workers began demanding full-time positions, when they joined the JMIU in 2004.

They have for years worked for the company as temporary workers disguised as “individual contract workers.” The company refused to directly hire them in contravention of a Workers Dispatch Law provision that a company that has used temporary workers for three years is required to offer full-time positions to them.

In December 2005, they denounced the company for using them as “individual contract workers” instead of temporary workers so as to evade the requirement of offering them full-time positions after three years of service and filed a complaint with the Tokushima Labor Bureau.

With the Tokushima Prefectural Government’s mediation in August, 2006, the union and the company agreed that the company would directly employ them and promote them to full-time workers after a certain period. However, union members continued their struggle because they sensed that the company may try to terminate the contract after 2 years and 10 months.

The JMIU Tokushima regional branch announced that from December 21, the company will promote to full-time positions 14 contract workers, including union members, after giving an examination to 47 contract workers selected from 200 people who were hired as contract workers after they worked as individual contract workers.

Yabe Hiroshi, the head of the Koyo Sealing branch of JMIU Tokushima, said, “We are very glad that 14 contract workers won full-time positions in the struggle to thwart the company’s attempt to dismiss contract workers after a short period. We will continue to struggle until all contract workers get full-time positions.”

Moriguchi Hideaki, the chair of JMIU Tokushima, said, “Union members who claimed the use of ‘disguised contract work’ of violating the law won full-time positions through their own struggle. This is the first victory of this kind to be won by workers for themselves.”