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8 October, 2007
This week, on 10-11 October, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, RENGO, will hold its Congress in Tokyo, and high on the agenda is an action plan featuring the strengthening of wages, benefits, and rights for non-regular workers. This plan means both RENGO and Japanese trade union federation UI Zensen have now prioritised that part-time and limited-term workers receive equal treatment in Japan’s social-work agenda.
Rengo is highlighting attention for temporary employees, part-time staff, and contract and agency workers in two-year action policies on both Equality and Work-Life Balance. The improvement of working conditions for such workers is listed as a major goal, and this comes from RENGO’s already existing Joint Actions with Part-Time Workers Committee.
The federation will issue a Declaration on Reforming Working Patterns and follow that statement up with a multi-faceted campaign. That campaign will ensure, among other things, a liveable wage for temporary and part-time workers. As one of three focal points for work in the 2008-2009 period, “RENGO will give top priority to strengthening support for and collaboration with non-regular workers and employees at smaller companies, and will work with affiliates and local RENGOs to reform working patterns with a view to guaranteeing the rights of all workers and improving their working conditions.”
In the other two focal points, RENGO’s action policies state that the confederation and its affiliates at unionised enterprises will resist unreasonable “factors of society, and demand social responsibility” from companies and employers’ associations; and that Rengo will engage in total efforts to promote campaigns that are rooted in local communities, which will vitalise these communities and build greater trust by local people of the trade union movement.
In the year 2001’s set of national bargaining, RENGO first started including hourly wage increases for temporary and part-time workers, and last year the union engaged in joint shunto negotiations with part-time workers. The confederation reports that 251 affiliated labour unions realised hourly wage gains for part-time workers last year.
The action plan for 2008-2009 includes establishment of a labour consultation centre at RENGO headquarters, in which pay-raise negotiations for non-regular workers will be coordinated, and the centre will fully cooperate with unions that represent non-regular workers employed under temporary or fixed-term contracts. The centre will also actively utilise the internet as a mutual aid service for non-regular workers, and will open consultation channels for foreign workers employed in Japan.
Japanese unions are acutely aware that the number of workers recruited for full-time employment has decreased, while recruitment of temp staff and part-time workers has dramatically increased. That has been a major reason why, last year, the average annual income of company employees declined for the ninth consecutive year in Japan.