June 29, 1999

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

1. Today, the Upper House's Standing Committee on Social and Labor Affairs approved a bill to amend the Employment Security Law and the Labor Dispatch Law. The amendments to the Employment Security Law will liberalize privately run job placement services, and those to the Labor Dispatch Law will in principle totally liberalize the job types which can be performed by temporary staff. However, the amendment bill, which cleared the committee does not contain any provision to "prohibit the inclusion of registration-type job placement services into the newly added temporary job types". This is a principle to which RENGO has attached the utmost importance and which it had asked the three mainstream opposition parties to concentrate their effort on in the Upper House debate. A supplementary resolution to the amendment bill provides that "three years after the enactment of the law, the actual situation of temporary workers and their assured working conditions shall be surveyed and analyzed, and, if necessary, the law shall be reviewed". However, RENGO has no choice but to express regret at and dissatisfaction with the outcome of today's committee action.
   
   
2. In opposition to the proposed partial amendments to the Labor Dispatch Law, RENGO has adopted a seven-item list of demands for revising the proposed amendments. Specifically, the aim is to have the amendments fit the actual employment and working conditions encountered by temporary workers and the worker protection requirements stipulated in ILO Convention No. 181, as well as to prevent any further increase in the number of workers in insecure employment conditions. To realize this package of proposed revisions, RENGO has, since debate on the amendments bill began in the Lower House, been calling upon the three opposition parties to work out as unified a counter-proposal as possible, based on RENGO's package of proposed revisions, for the purpose of revising the amendments bill.
   
   
3. In consequence, at the Lower House level, a unified counter proposal was developed among the Democratic Party of Japan, the Komei/Reformist Club and the Social Democratic Party. As a result, the amendment bill, which cleared the floor of the Lower House, included eight salient amendments and five supplementary resolutions. Among them the following are included. 1) a legislative measure to prevent regular employment from being eroded by temporary jobs by stipulating that when a company uses a temporary worker for over one year, the company will be advised to employ the worker. 2) If it fails to heed the advice, the company will be subject to an official instruction, the company name will be made public, and 3) the temporary staffing agency involved will be assessed a civil penalty. In addition, a requirement to strengthen measures protecting the privacy of information on temporary staff was added to the amendment bill, which cleared the Lower House.
   
   
4. Looking back on the process of consideration of the bill and the amendments achieved in the Lower House, RENGO's position is that it generally approves of the strengthened measures in the bill for the protection of workers. However, it continues to call upon the three opposition parties, during the debate before the Upper House, to focus their efforts on the "prohibition of registration-type temporary staffing services under the new regime". It is an idea which RENGO believes utmost importance as a measure to prevent any increase in the number of workers in insecure employment.
   
   
5. During the period since the bill was referred to the Upper House Standing Committee on Social and Labor Affairs, the opposition members of the committee have, on the basis of RENGO's requests and the process in the Lower House, extended opinions. And they provided intensive arguments focused on ways to prevent any increase in the number of workers in insecure employment, including the issue of how to allow short-term contract workers and registration-type temporary workers to subscribe to social and labor insurance programs.
   During the committee debate, RENGO mobilized trade union members to attend the committee sessions as observers and conduct sit-in campaigns in front of the Upper House office/residential building, by calling upon members of RENGO affiliates. Through these activities, RENGO supported the committee members from the opposition parties during the debate on the amendments bill. RENGO has also from time to time asked the opposition parties to listen to RENGO's position on possible reactions to developments in the committee debate.
   
   
6. RENGO appreciates the efforts the different political parties have made during the debate on the amendment bill. However, it feels regret at and is dissatisfied with the outcome of the process. Nevertheless, RENGO accepts the fact that the amendment bill as adopted reflects discussions in the Diet and the parties' political decisions based on on-going developments in the political situation.
   Therefore, RENGO will work to develop closer ties with temporary workers, both organized and yet to be organized, and the involved trade unions, both within and outside RENGO, to discourage or eliminate the problems of short-term contract workers and temporary staffing jobs which will arise in the years ahead. And based on the experiences acquired, RENGO will address the Diet review and debates on the enacted law three years after its enactment, which has been adopted in the supplementary resolution this time.