Diet begins discussing bills to aversely revise labor laws

The Diet has begun deliberating major adverse changes in labor laws that would further exacerbate the employment situation, the low-wage system, and working conditions in general.

On April 22, the government presented the House of Representatives with a bill to adversely revise the law regulating the hiring of temporary workers. The proposed changes in the Labor Standards Law will be debated in early May.

Akahata of April 22 points out the problems and serious adverse effects of these bills.

The bill to amend the law regulating the use of temporary workers would allow workers to be hired for a period up to three years instead of the present one year, and lift restrictions on certain professional jobs and all manufacturing jobs. Lifting the ban in the manufacturing industry, which will affect eight million workers, will encourage corporations to extensively replace regular workers with temporary workers.

The bill to amend the Labor Standards Law would also extend the upper limit of term employment from one to three years, allow the wage to be weighed not by hours worked but by job performance, and extend the application of the "discretionary work" system to include unpaid overtime. The revised law gives corporations virtual freedom to dismiss workers.

Akahata criticizes the proposed major adverse revision of labor laws intended to further increase low-paid and unstable jobs in the midst of a prolonged economic recession.

Even under the present laws, there are many cases of overtime work without pay and death from overwork (karoshi) as many workers testified in their meeting with lawyers on April 18 in Tokyo. A Japan Air System flight attendant on a fixed-term contract said they are afraid of losing their jobs every third year. (end)