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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Part-timers call for decent jobs

About 2,500 young workers and women workers on March 10 took part in a rally held at Hibiya Amphitheater in Tokyo, calling for better working conditions, job security, and an increase in wages. After the rally, participants split up to take various actions such as a joining a march through the Ginza.

The president of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), Kumagai Kanemichi, on behalf of the organizer said that securing decent employment for young people and attaining the equitable treatment for women and part-time workers based on the principle of equal pay for equal work are important challenges for Japanese society.

Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira in his speech criticized the Koizumi Cabinet for abandoning the government responsibility for narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.

Kim Ju-hwan, planning director of the Korea Contingent Workers Center who was visiting Japan, spoke in solidarity with the participants.

In front of the building of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), a 30-year-old worker from Hokkaido read out a letter addressed to Keidanren Chair Okuda Hiroshi (Toyota Motor president), "With Hokkaido's minimum wage of 641 yen, we cannot afford to buy even a used Toyota car."

A 32-year-old employee of a distribution service company said that after he had formed a union to address the situation in which workers were forced to work from 4:00 p.m. till 5:00 a.m., the company was dissolved on paper in order to remove union members. They are now fighting in court to obtain status as workers in the "new" company.

A former assistant photographer, 23, said that he was paid only for shooting days, but after participating in a large rally held last November by the Metropolitan Young Workers' Union and other young organizations, he realized that he was not alone and established a young workers union.
- Akahata, March 11, 2006