Japan Press Weekly

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2014 November 26 - December 2 [LABOR]

Labor bureau advises Renesas to not transfer workers to distant workplace against their will

The Tokyo Labor Bureau of the labor ministry has given three directives to leading semiconductor maker Renesas Electronics Corporation to not force two childrearing women workers to commute to a distant office against their will, Akahata has recently learned.

Efforts of workers and unions supporting the two female workers and tenaciously putting pressure on the labor ministry and Dietmembers bore fruit.

On December 1, supporters and some union members carried out a rally in front of the Renesas Tamagawa office in Kawasaki City (Kanagawa Pref.), explaining that there is no need for Renesas workers to accept early retirements or work-positions at distant offices while the business is doing well. They called for the return of the two workers to their original workplaces as soon as possible.

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Koike Akira (House of Councilors) at a Diet session (Oct.21) has taken up this issue, demanding that the labor ministry advise and direct Renesas to end any practice found to be in violation of the Childcare and Family-care Leave Act.

Renesas is planning to eliminate 5,400 jobs by the end of 2015. As part of this plan, the semiconductor maker conducted a voluntary retirement program. The two workers, however, refused to retire. They now have to commute from Tokyo to an office more than 120km away by bullet train or by care on an expressway.

Past related article:
> JCP Koike criticizes Renesas’s tactics to fire child-rearing women [October 22, 2014]