Deliberations at the ongoing Diet
session are now in their final stages. RENGO conducted its “5.29 Pep Rally
against Negative Changes to Labor Legislation” at the Hibiya Amphitheater
in order to stop negative changes to labor legislation and also conducted a demonstration
march to the National Diet.
The following day, RENGO held a rally at the House of Representatives Visitors
Area where all participants pledged to fight without giving up to the end. At
the Central Pep Rally on the 29th with 3500 people in attendance, RENGO President
Sasamori strongly expressed his resolution saying “we will spend every second
of every minute of our time and every ounce of our strength to create actions
that block any negative changes to labor legislation. If drastic modification
is not gained, then we will kill the draft using brute force.”
Democratic Party of Japan Policy Research Committee Chair Edano, Social Democratic
Party Secretary General Fukushima, Liberal Party Diet Affairs Committee Chairman
Yamaoka, and Party for Independents Representative Tanabu all stood in solidarity
to give speeches and pledged to struggle with all their might to drastically modify
the original draft.
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| Photo: President Sasamori is determined to stop legislation that will worsen the situation for labor. (May 29, Hibiya Amphitheater.) |
In an opening speech at the Central Pep Rally, Sasamori said, “the real
situation is that the government never makes policies for the people, lacks conscience
enough to admit when its policies fail, and has no courage to change its policies.”
He continued keenly criticizing the Koizumi administration by saying, “Japan’s
extremely severe dysfunctional state of affairs can at best only be attributed
to the man-made disaster created by Prime Minister Koizumi and each of his ministers.”
He said, “to correct this situation, we must thrust our citizen’s
anger directly at the national government.” He further said that on the
government bill for revising the Labor Standards Law now under the deliberation
at the ongoing Diet session “places the dismissal of freedom at the forefront
and promotes and increases unstable employment.” With determination he said,
“RENGO will spend every second of every minute of our time and every ounce
of our strength to create actions that block any negative changes to labor legislation.
If drastic modification is not gained, then we will kill the draft using all our
strength.” Additionally, he called on the audience to “gather for
action to block negative changes to diligently work for legislation that responds
to and is good for workers, and for international labor standards that are respectable
on an international level.”
Following that, representatives from the four opposition parties gave solidarity
speeches expressing their commitment to seek radical revision on the negative
bill, or if that is not possible, to fight with all their strength to kill the
bill.
Democratic Party of Japan Policy Research Committee Chair Yukio Edano stated that
“Prime Minister Koizumi demonstrates that he does not understand anything
about the living conditions of real people. This is symbolically represented by
the ongoing negative changes to labor legislation.”
Social Democratic Party Secretary General Mizuho Fukushima complained that the
“Labor Standards Law was made to protect workers. But this outrageous change
will reverse its nature 180 degrees. A series of negative changes is the last
part of labor legislation deregulation in the Koizumi administration’s Structural
Reform and it will only destabilize employment all the more.” Liberal Party
Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Kenji Yamaoka stated that “natural resource-poor
Japan’s biggest asset is the ‘quality of its people.’ The best
workers in the world built modern Japan. These negative changes threaten to undermine
that very foundation. Our lives very security is being threatened.” The
Party for Independents Representative Masami Tanabu showed his resolution by saying,
“we will do our best to correct an entire nation’s perversion.”
After the rally closed with the RENGO activity report, struggle proposal, and
adoption of the appeal, participants joined in conducting a demonstration march
to the Diet. Demonstrators encouraged numerous opposition party legislators who
rushed to the Visitors Areas of both the Houses of Councilors and Representatives
in support.
At the next day’s rally on May 30 at the Visitors Area of the House of Representatives,
attendees again affirmed that they were “now facing the moment of truth.”
They offered the highest encouragement to Democratic Party of Japan House of Representatives
members Masamitsu Jojima, Setsuya Kagita and Kazunori Yamanoi as well as Social
Democratic Party House of Representatives member Tetsuo Kaneko, all of whom were
attending the House of Representatives Health, Welfare and Labor Committee.
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Rally Appeal
Deliberations in the current Diet session to change labor legislation for
the worse are now at a crucial stage. A bill to revise the Labor Standards Law
is under deliberation at the House of Representatives which contains the following:
dismissal rules that may lead to an encouragement in dismissals, raising fixed-period
labor contract limits may increase destabilization of employment, discretionary
work system procedural relaxation may lead to an increase in long-hour work and
an expansion in workplaces where discretionary work systems are allowed.
Furthermore, revision of the Worker Dispatch Law has passed the House of Representatives
and is now under deliberation at the House of Councilors.
Both bills aim to dispose of workers. We can only say that these revisions incorporate
only management’s intentions which treat workers as merchandise.
In particular, inclusion in the rules of dismissal of the phrase, “employers
may dismiss employees” will probably result in misunderstandings that management
“may dismiss workers freely.”
Furthermore, workers are now in danger of bearing the full burden of proof during
litigation that they had no reason to be fired. These are precisely the sort of
changes to the nature of the Labor Standards Law that we will never allow.
What does the government stand for?
On one hand, there is no end to a stream of bankruptcies and frequent personnel
downsizing in these dire employment conditions. On the other, workers are being
forced into long work hours and excessive labor.
Workers have no idea when they might be fired, and cannot make any future plans
for their lives. Is it not the government’s responsibility to improve such
conditions and eliminate workers fears?
Time is running short.
We must radically modify the Labor Standards Law at the risk of the existence
of the labor unions.
Now is the time to fortify our approaches to political parties, focusing on the
opposition parties, and to beef-up joint struggles both in and out of the Diet.
We must not allow any changes to worsen labor legislation that may create possible
future problems.
Let us continue to appeal with workplaces and localities until the very end, without
giving up.
May 29, 2003
RENGO 5.29 Pep Rally Against Negative Changes to Labor Legislation |
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