STATEMENTS

The statement of the General Secretary on the occasion of the closing of the 146th Special Diet Session

December 15, 1999

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

  1. The original objective of this Special Session was to adopt the 2nd supplementary budget and the small and medium enterprise bill in order to ensure the full recovery from the long-term stagnation and to restore the employment security. However, the coalition government, consisting of the LDP, Komei Party and the Liberty Party, steered the Diet based on the party interest. They tried to pass the pension reform bill and the Diet reform bill, owing to their numerical power, which RENGO believes should be denounced.

    The opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Social Democratic Party, strongly opposed to the tyrannical politics by the coalition government and blocked the adoption of the above-mentioned bills that were decided to be discussed in the following session. RENGO highly evaluates such opposition.

  2. RENGO requested that the 2nd supplementary budget should include the creation of 1.4 million jobs, the reinforcement of the base of employment insurance in the view of assisting the unemployed and the improvement of pension, medical and caring insurance schemes in order to ease the sense of insecurity. However, the adopted budget are still focused on public works amounted to 3.5 trillion yen. It lacks concrete measures for job creation and is not able to overcome the current situation of the unemployment. Moreover, the budget includes 900 billion yen to reduce/freeze the premium of the caring insurance, which denies the effort of local governments and hampers the establishment of the base of caring services. This should be strongly criticized.

  3. In particular, we should pursue the question of the government's responsibility for ramming the bill on pension reform that proposed the reduction of the pension level and postponed the fundamental reform for the short period of the session.

    It should take sufficient time to discuss the pension reform taking into account its influence on the livelihood of the people. Rengo has organized campaigns, such as sit-in continued for 13 days, to oppose the insincerity of the coalition government. Such action reinforced the cooperation between the opposition parties, which led to the failure in adopting the bill in this session. RENGO will continue struggling for the fundamental pension reform.

  4. Politics introduced by the coalition government in this Diet session can be considered as self-interest oriented politics based only on the internal consensus with the government, failing in assuming the responsibility for challenging the sense of insecurity surrounding the whole nation.

    RENGO is standing on the interest of 60 million workers, not on the interest of any specific group. It makes every effort to realize policies and institutions, particularly in the area of pension and job creation to relieve the people of the anxiety.

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