1. RENGO will strive to maintain and secure employment and create jobs. Specifically, RENGO will:

(1) Be committed entirely to maintaining and securing employment and creating jobs in order to halt the free-fall of Japanese society;

(2) Recognize that employment stability is a corporate social responsibility, and promote joint efforts to be made for employment stability between the government, labor, and management by utilization of the Employment Adjustment Subsidy;

(3) Expand and enhance industrial consultations on employment and working conditions, including personnel management and human resources development for maintaining and securing high-quality employment;

(4) Enhance employment safety nets through expansion of the unemployment insurance system and the foundation of a “Benefit Plan to Support Work and Life” (provisional title); and

(5) Promote the “Plan to Create 1.8 Million Jobs” and the “Japanese Version of the Green New Deal.”

2. RENGO will strive to reduce total annual working hours to ensure a work-life balance.

(1) Since the employment society is now undergoing change, based on an examination of the achievement status of the minimum goal of the midterm policy, RENGO will revise its midterm policy for reductions in working hours, including the viewpoint of establishing “ways of working which strike a balance between work and life,” and review the status of regulations on working hours.

(2) Based on this policy, RENGO will promote its movement for reducing working hours as a crucial joint effort, taking the results of workplace inspections in each industry into consideration.

(3) At the same time, RENGO will promote efforts for raising the premium rate for overtime based on its policies to respond to the revised Labor Standards Law (dealing with the modification of labor contracts according to the revision) that is a part of measures to reduce total working hours.

3. RENGO will strive to enhance the functions of the joint-struggle liaison committees for correcting disparities in distribution, raising and supporting wage levels and setting up social pay rates.

4. RENGO will carry out campaigns for enhancing joint struggle toward social horizontality of working conditions that can respond to the changes in the labor market, including a consideration of affixing a name to each joint-struggle liaison committee.

5. RENGO will strengthen campaigns for rectifying disparities, raising wage levels and improving working conditions through the enhancement of the movements of the SME (small- and medium-sized enterprise) Joint Struggle Center and the Joint Struggle Congress for Part-time Workers.

(1) The SME Joint Struggle Center will strengthen its efforts for redressing disparities in terms of wage level by grasping pay realities and curbing wage polarization.

(2) The Joint Struggle Congress for Part-time Workers will hold “Meetings of Part-time Workers” and symposiums at the community level to encourage the participation of industrial and enterprise-based unions and the establishment and expansion of opportunities for information exchange while promoting efforts for equal/balanced treatment regarding the working conditions.

6. RENGO will strive to establish a livable minimum wage. Specifically, RENGO will:

(1) Strengthen the movement to prop up wages by encouraging companies to conclude in-house minimum wage agreements and raise their pay levels;

(2) Strive to sharply increase legal minimum wages in the respective regions, focusing on wage standards for general workers, initial wages for high school graduates, and the RENGO Living Wage; and

(3) Strive to set up new standards and raise the existing standards of legal industrial minimum wages in the tertiary industrial sector, including the field of care and the service industry.

7. RENGO will call on companies to conclude in-house minimum wage agreements and deal with various equal/balanced treatment issues, such as wage levels, from the viewpoint of balancing the wages of regular workers and non-regular workers.

8. RENGO will hold a disparity adjustment forum to deal with not only adjustments, but also equal/balanced treatment.

9. RENGO will promote appropriate corporate transactions by cooperating with employers' associations and relevant ministries and agencies, as well as advancing efforts at workplaces in cooperation with the affiliates and RENGO locals for improving working conditions for workers of SMEs and subsidiaries.

10. To guarantee fair labor standards for those working under public contracts, RENGO will strengthen its campaign for the enactment of a basic law and local ordinances concerning public contracts.

11. RENGO will seek the revision of the Worker Dispatch Law from the viewpoint of protecting workers, including the prohibition of the “dispatch of day laborers,” the introduction of a “provision on deemed direct employment” and the establishment of the equal treatment principle.

12. RENGO will campaign for legal provisions concerning fixed-term contracts from the viewpoint of protecting workers, including the conclusion of such contracts permitted only under “reasonable circumstances” and limitations on the number of renewals and periods for such contracts.

13. RENGO will work for the legislation on the continuation of labor contracts, maintenance of working conditions and discussions with trade unions from the viewpoint of protecting workers during the restructuring processes of any company or business organization, including the transfer of a business to a new owner.

14. RENGO will strive for the early abolition of the grace period for SMEs with regard to an increase in the premium rate stipulated in Article 37 of the revised Labor Standards Law.

15. RENGO will strive for the expansion of the Employment Contract Law in order to protect workers from a withdrawal of a job offer, or for worker protection in the case of a fixed-term contract.

16. RENGO will strive for an early ratification by the Japanese government of the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” and the enactment of an effective “Law to Prohibit Discrimination in Employment Based on Disability” (provisional title) in order to ban discrimination at every stage of employment.

17. RENGO will strive for fundamental reforms of the “Industrial Training and Technical Internship Program,” including its abolition, as well as addressing such issues as respect for human rights and the protection of migrant workers.

18. RENGO will strive for the enactment of legislation on a workers' representation system.

19. RENGO will discuss and formulate employment and labor policies from the medium- and long-term view, in addition to its “Demands and Recommendations on Policies and Systems.”

20. RENGO will strive to increase daily benefits and extend the period of benefits, as well as expand the scope of unemployment benefits to every worker. In addition, RENGO will call for the foundation of a “minimum benefit” (provisional title) with respect to the basic allowance of unemployment benefits.

21. RENGO will strive to ensure the permanent institutionalization of the Japanese Government's “Benefits for Training and Livelihood Support,” targeted for the long-term unemployed who face difficulties in finding jobs, as the RENGO-proposed “Benefit Plan to Support Work and Life” (provisional title). In addition, RENGO will work on reviewing housing, medical and care support in welfare benefits toward support for the self-sustainability of low-income earners, and on establishing a housing subsidies system, and a system to subsidize healthcare and nursing care.

22. Based on the “RENGO Occupational Safety and Health Guideline (2008 - 2012),” trade unions will strive to set up and activate a safety and health committee at every workplace to work on the introduction of risk assessment, taking measures to prevent overwork, mental health problems, deaths and suicides from overwork, and enhancing measures to prevent major accidents.

23. RENGO will seek to establish a safety and health management system by means of thoroughgoing education on safety and health and the provision of information by workplace regardless of employment forms, and to realize a work environment that can alleviate anxiety for all working people.

24. RENGO will work on expanding the range of work-related injuries and diseases, reviewing standards to certify industrial accidents, and increasing the amount of compensation for injury and illness.

25. RENGO will work toward the enhancement of preventive measures against exposure to asbestos and for improvements in compensation for health problems.

26. RENGO will call on companies to enhance their vocational capacity development and strive to expand official support for training at corporations in order to strengthen efforts to foster core human resources, including the inheritance of skills and techniques.

27. RENGO will encourage companies to strengthen support for employee acquisition of official certification, as well as calling for the expansion of capacity building measures for youths, single mothers and non-regular workers, who have few opportunities for capacity building.

28. To promote vocational capacity development, RENGO will call on public occupational training facilities to formulate education and training plans and measures to support career improvement under the participation of corporations, industry groups, and trade unions.

29. RENGO will call for legislation to improve the labor dispute resolution system, including the recognition of carrying out procedures for a labor union official by proxy.

30. RENGO will call on dispute settlement committees of prefectural bureaus of labor affairs to strengthen their authority and structures so that they can solve individual industrial disputes effectively.

31. RENGO will promote the utilization of the “individual labor-related dispute mediation” carried out by prefectural labor relations commissions for the solution of such disputes.

32. RENGO will continuously strive for reform and revitalization of labor relations commissions while examining the revised Labor Union Law.

33. RENGO will call for improvements in the environment of the jury system (citizen judge system), such as the introduction of paid jury leave, and improvements in the mental health care system and support for the disabled, while further promoting people's understanding of the system.