Japan Press Weekly

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2014 August 13 - 19 [LABOR]

340 local assemblies oppose Abe’s labor reform

In protest against the Abe Cabinet’s move to adversely revise labor laws, as of August 15, 340 local assemblies adopted written opinions in opposition.

A bill to ease rules on the use of temporary workers, which the Abe administration submitted to the latest ordinary session of the Diet, was abandoned amid growing opposition from labor unions and the general public. The prime minister plans to submit the same bill again in the upcoming extraordinary Diet session to be convened in the autumn. In addition, the government intends to submit to the next ordinary session of the Diet a bill to introduce a so-called white collar exemption system which will legalize overtime without pay and lead to an increase in death from overwork.

The assembly of Ibaraki’s Hitachi City, the home of global electronics manufacturer Hitachi, in its statement stressed, “It is totally unacceptable for the central government to draw up an economic growth strategy without caring about the workers.” It states that the need now is not to increase the number of low-paid temporary workers, but to provide them with more stable employment opportunities and better working conditions.

A statement of Hokkaido’s Honbetsu Town Assembly states that to further replace regular workers with agency workers will increase unstable employment. It demands that the Worker Dispatch Law should be amended drastically in line with a call for the creation of a society where everyone can work as regular employees.

Many local assemblies also criticized the central government’s labor reform policies, such as an introduction of a no-overtime-pay system. The Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly, for example, said that the no-overtime-pay system will force workers to work without limit.