Japan Press Weekly

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2015 April 8 - 14 [LABOR]

Woman worker at Renesas wins withdrawal of distant transfer order

With help from a union and the Japanese Communist Party, a female worker at Japan’s leading semiconductor maker has recently won the withdrawal of a company distant transfer order.

Renesas Electronics Corporations in January 2014 announced a plan to cut 5,400 jobs by the end of spring of 2015. As a part of restructuring measures, the company repeatedly held individual interviews with targeted workers and forced them to accept early retirement offers. The company gave distant transfer orders to some workers, including the woman who refused to accept early retirement.

The woman worker was ordered to move to an office located in Gunma’s Takasaki City, about 120 km away from her office in Tokyo’s Kodaira City. She had to spend nearly six hours a day traveling to and from work via public transportation, including the Shinkansen bullet train.

Her union, the Denki-joho union which organizes individual workers in the electronics and information industries, waged a struggle for her reinstatement and tenaciously negotiated with the company. In support of the union’s struggle, Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Koike Akira took up the issue in the Diet.

The worker said, “I’m really glad because I’m returning to my original office. The company should treat its employees with dignity.”


Past related articles:
> Labor bureau advises Renesas to not transfer workers to distant workplace against their will [December 2, 2014]
> JCP Koike criticizes Renesas’s tactics to fire child-rearing women [October 22, 2014]
> Union fights against Renesas’s harsh downsizing [August 24, 2013]