July 8, 1999

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

We applaud the reform bill approved recently, which omits limits on regulations from the Law of Ministry Foundation and enforces the function of the adjustment by the Cabinet. However, there are still some problems. The role of public service, the object of policy evaluation and the functions of evaluation are very unclear.

As for the bill of local government rights, we consider it equalizes the relationship between national and local governments by repealing the organizational commission affairs. However, the demand of correction by the national government toward the local affairs put the equal and cooperative relationship between them in danger. Also, there are problems, such as it is not clear how to maintain the regional service of regional social insurance work and the employment security work and to transfer the resources of the tax and treasury from the nation to the regions is postponed.

RENGO will work to enact laws to evaluate the administration, to let unions participate in the policy evaluation system organization, to enact the administration action law and to apply the independent administration judicial person and enact the individual law according the restructuring of the ministries. Furthermore, we will work with the position of keeping the fair administration open to participation and the basic rights of unions against downsizing numbers of civil servants. Also, to build the regionalization of power, RENGO will work on the early activation of the second regional propulsion plan, which includes the united supplementary fund system. And we will work to transfer the resources of the tax and treasury from the nation to the regions, to build safe and secure regions with the fair administrations open to participation.