Improve care workers’ poor labor conditions: JCP Daimon

Japan Press Weekly

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

Improve care workers’ poor labor conditions: JCP Daimon

Japanese Communist Party representative Daimon Mikishi at the House of Councilors Budget Committee meeting on March 24 called for care workers’ low-wage and harsh labor conditions to be improved without delay.

Daimon said care workers are forced to work under very inadequate working conditions. About 40 percent of the nation’s 1.2 million care workers are not employed full-time, and the shortage of care workers is very serious, he said.

In pointing out that care workers are low-wage earners, he said that a 34-year-old worker with 10 years of experience earns only 180,000-190,000 yen per month.

Daimon said, “If nothing is done to solve this problem, the structure that supports nursing-care services could collapse.” He stressed the need to make effort to improve the work environment, including an increase in care workers’ wages.

He also said that public intervention is necessary in setting care workers’ wages in order to ensure that they receive adequate wages, emphasizing that nursing-care businesses are subsidized with tax money as well as with the insurance premiums.

Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Masuzoe Yoichi said in reply, “The ministry will use your proposal as a reference,” though insisting that the nursing-care insurance program is based on the concept of “self-help and mutual assistance.”

- Akahata, March 25, 2008