Japan Press Weekly

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2014 January 8 - 14 [POLITICS]

Abe seeks a society ruled by the law of the jungle

The government led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo this year intends to move forward with the plan to cut social welfare services, relax labor regulations, and destroy the existing democratic education system built under the post-war Constitution.

Social welfare services

The Diet last December enacted a law on social security programs defining the government role to be limited to assisting people’s efforts for self-help and self-care. Following the enactment of the law, the Abe Cabinet plans to submit to the ordinary session of the Diet to be convened this month a set of bills which will further deteriorate social and welfare programs.

A bill to adversely revise the nursing-care insurance law, for example, seeks to reduce services available for elderly people whose level of need for nursing-care is regarded as low by the relevant authorities and prevent those people from entering special nursing-care facilities.

In addition to this, in April, a 1% cut in pension benefits will be implemented, and the elderly aged between 70 and 74 will have to pay 20% of medical fees at hospitals (currently 10%).

Labor legislation

Prime Minister Abe intends to accelerate his move to increase corporate profits and loosen labor regulations under the slogan, “Making Japan the best nation in the world to engage in corporate activities.”

What the Abe administration aims through the easing of labor laws is to enable corporations to use temporary workers without any restrictions, promote utilization of “limited regular full-time employees” who are low-paid and easily fired, and introduce a “white-collar exemption system” which is designed to abolish corporate compensation for overtime.

Education

Claiming that education reform is “a top priority, just as much as economic revival,” the prime minister shows an eagerness to escalate municipal heads’ control over education by making adverse changes in the existing board of education system.

He is also aiming to change the textbook screening system to one that inculcates distorted historical views into children such as denial of “comfort women”, and eliminate the tuition-free program for public high school students.