Japan Press Weekly

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2014 October 22 - 28 [LABOR]

JCP Koike criticizes Renesas’s tactics to fire child-rearing women

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Koike Akira revealed on October 21 that Renesas Electronics Corporation has been putting pressure on its child-rearing women workers to choose either quitting their jobs or accepting transfer to a remote office.

In a House labor committee session, Koike noted that this is a tactic used by the semiconductor maker to dismiss 5,400 workers by the spring of 2015.

According to Koike, Renesas ordered two women employees with young children to transfer from their office in Tokyo’s Kodaira City to another branch in Gunma’s Takasaki City starting October 1. It takes more than two and a half hours to commute to the Takasaki office. In addition, the manufacturer gave the two workers advance notices of dismissal, pressing them to choose to either resign or accept the transfer.

The JCP parliamentarian pointed out that Article 26 of the Child and Family Care Leave Law requires employers to “consider” workers’ situations when transferring workers who are engaged in child or family care to other workplaces. Stressing that the two workers’ relocation to such a remote office runs counter to the aims of the law, he urged the administration to instruct the company to reconsider the transfer order.

A labor ministry official replied that the law does not go so far as to ban the transfer of workers caring for children.

Koike demanded that the labor authorities conduct a thorough investigation into this issue, criticizing the ministry’s stance as contradictory to the Abe government’s slogan, “the creation of a society where women can shine”.

Labor Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa said in response, “We will investigate all the facts pertaining to this case.”

Past related article:
> Union fights against Renesas’s harsh downsizing [August 24, 2013]