Find a way out of living and employment insecurity
(28 August 1998)

At the Central Executive Committee on 4 August 1998, RENGO verified its actions to actualize its policy demands. They include nation-wide mass actions to push through 7 major demands such as 6 trillion-yen tax cut, provision of 4 trillion yen and creation of one million jobs.

 RENGO's major policy demands to be made in and after 1998 summer

  1. Economic recovery should be achieved by implementing 6 trillion-yen tax cut, providing 4 trillion-yen, creating one million jobs and formulating a policy to stabilise the financial system. The Financial Structure Reform Act should be frozen and reviewed and institutional tax cuts, provision of allowance to parents caring children and the aged should be planned to strive for the recovery of consumption. Job creation measures should be taken by the Government with a target indicator to ease the serious employment situation. To restore the financial system, a public institution of dealing with bad debts should be established on the assumption of disclosure and clarification of responsibilities.
  2. A safe and stable public pension system should be rebuild. Benefit standard should remain by increasing the Government's share of the basic pension and shifting to the total benefit system.
  3. New work rules should be established with job creation, the establishment of fair labour standards, and the job security for the aged and the equality between men and women. In more concrete way, RENGO demands:
    To actualize RENGO's proposal for the Labour Standards Revision Law.
    To improve the Part-time Workers Law
    To promote the enactment of the Gender Equality Law and the Manufacturing Basic Law
  4. The reform of medical system should be promoted to establish appropriate medical insurance scheme and adequate nursing system. The medical examination fee system and the medicine charge system should be reviewed. A new medical system for the aged should be developed to replace the current aged insurance system. The provision of caring services and the treatment of those engaged in the services should be improved.
  5. There should be a shift of socio-economic system from mass production, consumption and disposal to recycle and energy-saving.
  6. Administration should be transparent and be shifted from bureaucracy-led to participatory. The politics should be reformed to be more responsible. The Disclosure Bill should be approved at the earliest date and assessment measures should be established to monitor the process of formulating and implementing policies. Basic workers' rights of the public sector should be fully respected.
  7. Japan should make contribution to the creation of a global society, where core labour rights, human rights and environment protection are fully observed. In particular, these rights should be promoted in Asia.

Mass actions to be taken for August - October

RENGO will form caravans (gatherings, speeches on street corner, etc.) as a campaign for "job creation, economic recovery, establishment of fare work rules, actualization of pension and medical system reforms," aiming at the coming special session of the Diet.
For job creation, RENGO will consult local governments and local employers' associations in the view of formulating "local plan for job creation", while it will request the central Government to work out measures to promote job creation with a target point.
RENGO will organize a central meeting at the peak of the Diet session to push through the following points:

  1. To implement economic measures and 100 million job creation measures
  2. To actualize RENGO's proposal for the Labour Standards Law Revision and the revision of the Dispatched Workers Law to establish the rights of such workers.
  3. To actualize RENGO's proposal for pension and medical system reform
  4. To improve caring services

RENGO's organising activities: From "waiting" to "taking actions"
(28 August 1998)
At its 13th meeting, RENGO's Central Executive Committee agreed on the summary of its intensive organising campaign and future actions. The campaign activities approved by the Committee at its 6th meeting in February have been carried on at twelve different locations across Japan. This meeting determined that November be a promotion month and scheduled the 2nd stage of the intensive organising campaign to start 30 November and end 4 December. Furthermore, the 3rd stage will start from May 1999 through June.

National Personnel Authority set its recommendation at 0.76%
(28 August 1998)
The National Personnel Authority made a recommendation to the Diet that wage for public clerical workers only should be increased by 0.76% on 12 August. In response to this, RENGO published its General Secretary's comments that the recommendation should be implemented at the earliest stage.

RENGO invites Indian and Pakistani trade union leaders to Nagasaki
(28 August 1998)
RENGO organized a "peace" gathering in Nagasaki on 8 August to commemorate the dropping of the atom bomb. It invited 5 trade union leader from Indian and Pakistani trade union centers, such as HMS (India) and APFOL (Pakistan), for the purpose of informing the reality of atom bombs. One from India told that working people in India did not agree to the nuclear test. And one from Pakistan: "I had really a hard feeling when looking at a melted pencil case in the Atom Bomb Museum and I have deepened my recognition about the fierceness of nuclear weapons."


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