JCP calls for launching national struggle against massive personnel restructuring

The Japanese Communist Party Central Committee issued an appeal on September 10 calling on the people to develop a national struggle against the corporate restructuring being pursued by major companies and defend employment.

Shii Kazuo, JCP chair, and Ichida Tadayoshi, JCP Secretariat head, announced this at a press conference in the Diet Building. The same day, the party set up a JCP headquarters to this end, headed by Ichida.

The appeal says:

Now in Japan, which faces the worst ever unemployment rate, the storm of "personnel cuts and restructuring" is spreading across the country. Thirty major corporations in the automobile, electronics, and information industries announced plans to dismiss a total of 160,000 personnel.

We must note that the new century's first year, 2001, is epochal in that Japan's major corporations have begun imposing massive job cuts and unlawful restructuring on the workers.

To counter this, we must echo the workers' demands calling for: 'No to restructuring"; "Defend jobs"; and "Ensure minimum living conditions for the jobless."

Contrary to major corporate claims that "redundancy must be dissolved by means of restructuring," what's excessive is working hours and not the number of employed. Except for Japan, there is no other major capitalist country in the world in which such dismissals and restructuring are being allowed to continue so freely and unlawfully.

Restructuring will adversely affect not only the workers but subsidiary companies and local economies. Therefore, to organize the struggle against restructuring is essential for a sound development of Japan's society and economy.

Finally, the appeal calls on the workers to cooperate with people in all walks of life, and to move from every workshop and every community with the aim of urging the government and major corporations to fulfill their social duties.

Precisely, the appeal calls on the people, especially at workshops facing restructuring plans, to rise in the struggle; give support to and establish solidarity with the workers fighting against corporate plans; share steps with local governments to block the plans; question the responsibilities of company management and their industrial organizations; and severely criticize the central government's responsibility on this issue. (end)