Brakes on corporate restructuring can ease jobs crisis -- Akahata editorial, September 3Japan's job market remains in a serious condition. The unemployment rate for July was 5.3 percent with 3.42 million jobless. The rate exceeding five percent has continued for 25 consecutive months since July 2001.
Egoistic payroll cuts
What is it that keeps the unemployment rate high? The prevailing state of corporate restructuring and refusal to renew job contracts have driven 1.51 million workers to involuntarily quit their jobs.
The cold-hearted nature of companies is clearly shown in the V-shaped recovery achieved by electronics giant through a workforce cut of 100,000.
In disregard of legal precedents or laws for the protection of workers, the electronics companies forced their workers to retire or work for subsidiary companies at lower wages. What's more, these companies do not fulfill their social responsibility for workers, subcontractors, or local communities.
It is even more serious that the Koizumi government is actually encouraging companies to restructure themselves, thus forcing more people out of work. For example, under the industrial revitalization law, which helps corporate restructuring through corporate tax reductions, 75,000 jobs have disappeared.
How irresponsible it is for the government to pursue deregulation under the cover of diversification in forms of employment, causing an increase in the number of temporary and contract workers!
It is important to pay attention to the fact that the unemployment rate for young people is now over ten percent, forcing 4.17 million young workers out of regular employment. This hinders young people's self-reliance and the nation's economic growth, leads to a decline in the birth rate, and endangers the future of Japan's society.
In order to overcome the crisis of employment, it is essential to regulate lawless restructuring and dismissals and create more job opportunities.
The emergency proposal for job security the Japanese Communist Party issued on September 1 sets forth measures to be taken to increase stable employment and overcome the job crisis.
In response to calls of the people, the JCP proposed creating jobs by ending long-working hours and unpaid overtime work; securing jobs for young people who are the mainstay of a future society; making up for the short-handed social service sectors that are essential to livelihood and increasing the number of staff there; and setting up a framework for the state to provide financial aid to local government efforts to increase jobs.
For example, a trial calculation shows that ending illegal overtime without pay will create jobs for 1.6 million people, which will contribute to boosting the economy by increasing the gross domestic product by 2.5 percent.
In the present-day world, a majority of the public believes that if corporations fulfill their social responsibility, they can increase their competitiveness. It is epochal that the summit of the major countries in Evian confirmed that corporate social responsibility is a common principle on which sound macro economic growth should be based.
The Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizaidoyukai) in its corporate white paper has openly called for the social responsibility of corporations, saying that fulfilling this responsibility will help increase sustainable corporate development and competitiveness.
Business circles must ensure that corporate social responsibility be fulfilled. The government must end its support for corporate restructuring and fulfill its responsibility to expand stable jobs.
Common action under way
It should be noted that movements opposing corporate restructuring and defending jobs and regional economies are in progress throughout the country. Common action is increasing in opposition to the aggressive personnel cuts and plant closures and calling for corporate social responsibility to be fulfilled, including the workers' struggle to defend jobs and win cooperation from local governments and local chambers of commerce and industry.
The Democratic Youth League of Japan has begun a new signature drive calling on the government to take steps to provide young people more job opportunities.
A national assembly to discuss the struggle against corporate restructuring and to obtain job security and recovery of regional economies will take place on September 3 and 4. Let us make this assembly an opportunity to exchange experiences in workplaces and communities so that it will create a new momentum for the development of the movement. (end)