Keidanren places orders with LDP and DPJ

Japan Press Weekly

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

Keidanren places orders with LDP and DPJ

"Are you choosing a party that can speak out against large corporations or a party that does the bidding of large corporations? This should be a main criterion when deciding on which political party to support."

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi made this remark at a JCP speech assembly held on January 18 in Oita Prefecture.

In Oita Prefecture, many workers are in a tough time as Oita Canon, a major employer in the prefecture, plans to fire another 2,511 contingent workers at the end of March.

Expecting 580 billion yen in profits this fiscal year, the company distributed a total of 71.5 billion yen to its shareholders as mid-term dividends. If the company uses just five percent of the same amount as it paid out as dividends to its shareholders, it would have managed to maintain jobs for the 1,700 workers it has already fired.

"How is it permissible for the company to fire such a large number of workers? It is because all political parties except the JCP in 1999 agreed to remove major restrictions on the use of temporary workers by adversely amending the Worker Dispatch Law."

Ichida went on to say, "The labor market collapse is a disaster caused by misgovernment," and called on the audience to give support to the JCP, a party that struggles to defend jobs and support the household economy.

On the same day in Tokyo, leaders of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) attended the party conventions of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan and pressed the two parties to implement policies favored by the business sector. This shows that these two parties are "acting in line with what large corporations want."

At the LDP Convention, Nippon Keidanren Chairman Mitarai Fujio (Canon chairman) demanded that the ruling party focus on implementing policies that help corporate growth, saying, "When the economy is in bad shape, we must put an extra emphasis on more investment in technology." He said nothing about the massive on-going dismissals of contingent workers by large corporations.

At the DPJ Convention, Ohashi Mitsuo, a Nippon Keidanren committee co-chairman, demanded that the DPJ make an effort to implement laws or measures for more corporate tax breaks and for enhancement of international competitiveness by complaining, "There are hardly any major foreign enterprises that are willing to invest in Japan due to the excess of business constraints in Japan."

- Akahata, January 19, 2009