Japan Press Weekly

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2015 May 13 - 19 [LABOR]

Diet begins discussions on bill to force workers to continue working as temps

The Abe Cabinet aims to enact bills to undermine legal regulations protecting workers during the current Diet session. The House of Representatives on May 12 started deliberations on a bill to substantially ease restrictions on the use of temporary workers.

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Horiuchi Terufumi stressed in his interpellation at a Lower House plenary session that direct employment is the main principle of Japan’s labor system and practice which have been established after World War II. He pointed out that the Worker Dispatch Law, which was repeatedly revised after taking effect in 1986, has led to a major increase in the number of contingent workers in the country.

Horiuchi pointed to two main problems associated with the bill: it enables companies to extend the period allowed to use temps without limit if those companies listen to trade unions’ opinions on accepting temps, and it allows a firm to use the same dispatched employee continuously if it reassigns the employee somewhere within the firm. “If this measure becomes law, more and more regular workers will be replaced with temporary workers,” he said.

In response to Horiuchi, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo presented no measures to prevent the replacement of permanent employees with temporary workers.

The JCP parliamentarian demanded that the government withdraw the bill to encourage companies to dismiss regular workers as well as to tie temps to unstable jobs for their entire working lives.

Past related article:
> Labor Ministry encourages ruling parties to relax rules on use of temps [April 24, 2015]