Only 2.7 % of consumer advisers nationwide are full-timers

Japan Press Weekly

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Only 2.7 % of consumer advisers nationwide are full-timers

As part of consumer administration under the newly established Consumer Agency, response of consumer centers at local governments to consumer complaints and consultations play an increasingly important role.

However, only 75 (2.7 percent) of the 2,800 consumer advisers working in consumer centers across Japan are regular employees.

This is because the state urges cuts in the number of local government employees under the administrative reform promotion act, denying requests by local governments to increase their full-time employees.

In the case of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the consumer centers have 40 advisers to cover financing, real estate, communications, and other affairs. They conduct more than 36,000 consultations a year. When the Tokyo Metropolitan Government first initiated consumer consultancy, consultations for several days a month seemed to be sufficient. The number of complaints and consultations has now increased, and the present system is open six days a week.

However, all the forty advisers are non-regular employees working on one year contracts.

No retirement allowance

Employment by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government requires qualifications as a consumer adviser and other qualifications. Some have national licenses in related fields. The wage is uniformly 226,500 yen a month. Even when a work contract is renewed, the years in service and experience are not counted, with no payment of bonuses or severance pay.

Recently, their work entails dealing with sophisticated crimes in which elderly people are coaxed into buying valueless stocks or are swindled out of their money on the Internet. The fraud becomes even more wicked when swindlers exchange among themselves information about the victims so that the same persons are repeatedly prey for swindlers.

An adviser said, “I handle about 1,000 consultations a year. When consulting on the phone alone does not work, we call the producer or the trader and mediate for a settlement. Consultations about sinister cases are increasing, and we have to deal with them with expertise based on our past experiences.”

On the contrary, beginning from FY 2008 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government decided to limit up to five years the term of a renewed work contract with 856 non-regular workers who do jobs requiring expertise, including consumer consultancy. The Metropolitan Government explains that the need for all the jobs now taken by non-regular workers should be reviewed in five years.

Better treatment called for

An adviser complained, “The official letter of appointment we receive every year states that there is no guarantee for the next year’s employment. I am always disappointed to know that my experiences do not count for anything.”

“Our work is like that of the police or the fire department, defending consumers from injury. Job security and better treatment is necessary for workers to fully develop and utilize their abilities.”

The Tokyo public temp workers’ union criticized the Tokyo Government for employing short-term employees as disposable workers in spite of rich finance.The union denounced the Tokyo government’s decision as leading to a setback in consumer administration, and demands their reinstatement as full-time employees, with better treatment.

The Consumer Safety Law stipulates that all prefectures, including Tokyo, set up consumer centers, while city, town and village municipalities are asked to make efforts to establish consultation centers. There are 413 municipalities without consumer consultation centers. Even in municipalities with centers, more than half of villages, towns, and cities with a population less than 50,000 have only one adviser.

Urged by public opinion calling for improved consumer administration, the state increased the local subsidy tax grant, which in the past was earmarked at 1.5 million yen per office member, to 3 million yen, beginning from FY 2009. The step, however, is far removed from the need for drastic improvement.

Japanese Communist Party House of Representatives member Yoshii Hidekatsu at a meeting of the House special committee on consumers last March said, “Unless consumer advisers, who are the core of consumer administration, are fully supported, consumer administration won’t progress. At present, 70 percent of the advisers are actually working-poor. The administrative reform promotion act is putting a brake on the possibility of progress.” He demanded the Administrative Reform Promotion Law be revised to make local government employees full-time workers receiving better treatment.

-Akahata, July 30, 2010