The period between October 2008 and this June will see 4,955 employers shed 269,790 nonregular jobs, a March labor ministry survey showed Tuesday.
The figure, including workers whose labor contracts with manpower agencies were not renewed after expiration, increased by 7,192 from the previous survey in February, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
A ministry official said employment conditions are improving, but there is a need to monitor developments at the end of March, when more companies are expected to let labor contracts with temporary workers expire.
By prefecture, Aichi, the home of Toyota Motor Corp. and many of its parts suppliers, topped the list with 44,525 nonregular workers losing or expected to lose their jobs, followed by Tokyo with 15,932, Nagano with 11,150 and Shizuoka with 11,128.
The survey was compiled with data available as of March 18.
Dispatch
Being low-paid male temp probably spells bachelorhood
Being a temp comes with a number of drawbacks: a lack of job security, often low pay — and if you’re a man, anyway, little chance of tying the knot.
So says the latest labor ministry survey, released Wednesday, which found that out of some 700 single, male temporary workers aged 20 to 34 who responded, only 17.2 percent of them got married between 2002 to 2008, while the marriage rate for male regular employees was nearly double that at 32.2 percent, according to the survey.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry sent questionnaires to 33,689 men and women in 2002, of which 82.8 percent responded. The same questionnaires were sent to 16,793 people in 2008, with 91.3 percent responding.
Among the male temps in the 20-34 age group, only 4.8 percent had had children over the six-year period. Their regular-employee counterparts were more than 2 1/2 times more likely to have had kids, with 12.8 percent having done so.
According to the ministry, female temps are much more likely to quit their jobs after having their first child than regular workers. Of the roughly 600 women aged 20 to 34 who responded over the same six-year period, some 75 percent with temporary jobs quit after giving birth, compared with 36.4 percent of women with regular employment.
Among all women respondents, 52.9 percent who gave birth during the period quit their jobs.
Unsurprisingly, firms that provide maternity leave had more luck retaining mothers.
Some 81 percent of the regular workers who kept their jobs after childbirth said their companies offered leave, while only 48 percent of temp workers who kept their jobs said their companies did so, the survey found.
Among all female respondents, 52.8 percent said their companies have a maternity leave system. The gap in maternity leave was particularly wide between temporary and regular employees, with 83.3 percent of regular employees saying they were eligible for time off; among nonregular workers, the figure was only 19.1 percent.
Security for dispatch workers
The labor ministry last month asked an advisory body to discuss possible revisions to the law governing the dispatch of temporary contract workers. The Hatoyama administration hopes to improve the stability of dispatch workers’ employment situation, and plans to send a bill containing revisions to the Diet in March.
According to a ministry draft of the revision bill, the current temp system, which sees registered workers go without pay when there is no work to occupy them, will be banned in principle. Exceptions will be made for 26 fields of work that require specialized skills, such as interpreting. The draft proposes that the ban be phased in over a period of up to five years.
The draft also calls for dispatch on assignments lasting two months or less to be prohibited in principle, and for temp agencies to be obliged to make their commission margins public.
Dispatch of workers to manufacturing firms will also be banned in principle. Again, there will be a phasing-in period of up to three years before the ban is enforced. However, dispatch of registered workers to manufacturing firms will still be allowed if the workers receive pay continuously for more than one year, even if there is no actual work available.
The labor side says that the revisions will not prevent workers being dispatched to manufacturing firms on short-term, renewable contracts. Labor also questions why unskilled work such as filing and office machine operation is covered in the 26 “specialized” fields.
[The advisory body’s] main objective should be to prevent a situation in which dispatched workers can be easily and suddenly laid off in times of economic downturn. Legislation aside, management should realize that continuing to rely heavily on dispatch workers inhibits the accumulation of skills and know-how among staff, thus weakening a firm’s ability to compete in the long term.
Temps again get short end?
Labor bill loopholes may let manufacturers still have ‘disposable’ ranks
The Hatoyama administration is working on an amendment to the job dispatch law in an effort to provide greater security to temporary workers hit by the economic slump.
But observers worry that the Democratic Party of Japan-led ruling coalition is backing away from a campaign promise to drastically overhaul the law. This threatens to leave nonregular workers out in the cold.
The dispatch law, which regulates employer use of temporary workers, was loosened in recent years under Liberal Democratic Party-led administrations. Until 1999, only a few job categories, including clerical and translation work, could be filled by temps. That year, the law was revised to open up nearly all industries other than manufacturing and health care to temporary workers. Then in 2004, the law was amended to allow temps to work at manufacturers.
These changes allowed manufacturing firms to replace regular workers covered by costly job protections and welfare benefits with cheaper, and discardable, temps, who drew their pay from temp agencies.
When the global financial crisis struck in 2008, many temp workers were suddenly jobless, and, in many cases, homeless, especially those who had been provided company housing.
Masamichi Kondo, an Upper House member of the SDP who is working on the amendment, said Wednesday that negotiations with Ritsuo Hosokawa, senior vice labor minister and a DPJ member, have not gone smoothly.
“(The DPJ) doesn’t seem to want to agree on completely banning the dispatch (of temps) to the manufacturing industry because it is being pressured by business leaders,” Kondo said.
Kondo wants the law enacted as soon as possible. The report calls for the ban on temps at manufacturers to take effect within three years.
“We will stand firm in order to change the dispatch law, as that was the promise we made before the election and citizens supported us,” he said, adding the coalition plans to submit a revised bill on the dispatch law to the current Diet session in March.
Japan’s temps may get new deal, of sorts
The second coming of Haken Mura (dispatched workers’ village), temporary holiday accommodation for Japan’s growing number of laid-off haken (dispatched) workers, attracted less public attention than its 2009 incarnation.
“Big” stories, such as the alleged corruption involving ruling party leader Ozawa Ichiro, or the US-Japan spat over where to put American Marine helicopters in Okinawa, pushed the plight of unemployed, homeless workers from the front pages. The news value of this year’s compassionate protest, which ended on January 18, was to some extent also diminished by involvement of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW).
A year ago, the ministry was embarrassed by the encampment just across the street from its offices. Aided by non-profit organizations and labor activists, 500 displaced temporary workers took up residence, receiving food, emergency shelter, and employment assistance during the New Year vacation. Ministry officials this year arranged a move to a less prominent location at the Olympic Center in Yoyogi Park.
Despite the diminished publicity, hundreds again took refuge and many more consulted with lawyers who staffed a phone hotline and consulted face-to-face with workers about abrupt lay-offs, contracts not honored, and salaries not paid. Reports quoted workers who said that they preferred to talk with lawyers because the MHLW bureaucrats were unable to answer their queries constructively.
Official Japan has been loath to reveal that its statistics show labor market liberalization contributing to increased inequality and poverty. Publication of MHLW-collected poverty data had previously been left to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But, with the effects of labor deregulation becoming too obvious to disown, the MHLW this week published poverty statistics for the first time.
They verified earlier surveys indicating that one-sixth of Japanese live below the poverty line; 59% of those in poverty are single parents, the majority of them “working poor”, employed in the second tier of Japan’s labor force, which is made up of dispatch temporary workers and others who comprise the category of “non-regular employees”.
Dispatch workers
Dispatch labor was first deregulated in 1985. Growth of the temporary staffing industry was slow at first but picked up dramatically after layoffs and reduced hiring of new graduates following the collapse of the Japan’s economic bubble and the start of the decline of so-called lifetime employment. Today, nearly four in 10 Japanese workers are “non-regulars”. Their salaries and benefits are typically estimated at half of regular workers’ total compensation and their jobs are much less secure. Haken are leading the way to a lower wage floor, more-unstable working conditions, and greater social divisions.
The problem became more visible after 2004, when another round of labor deregulation allowed dispatch workers to be used in manufacturing, the backbone of Japan’s export-based economy. Previously, manufacturing had been carried out by full-time, regular workers, whom companies and their affiliated subcontractors took some care to train and retain. Pressured by more than a decade of economic stagnation, and influenced by neoliberal examples set forth in position papers issues by the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, key Japanese business leaders embraced “flexibility” and “diverse 21st century ways of working”, and moved away from Japan’s putative tradition of long-term, in-house human capital development.
The 2004 deregulation allowed manufacturers to cut costs by legally using dispatch temporary workers. Moreover, when work dries up, such non-regulars, who seldom have union representation, have the added advantage to employers of being easily, if controversially, dismissed, pulled off the line like surplus tools. Labor leaders and social activists argue that dispatch temporary workers are not machines but human beings, who need regular incomes for stability.
This haken issue has aroused strong passions about the future direction of Japanese labor practices and the shape of society in general. Firms claim they need flexible employment to survive and prosper. Advocates for workers argue that without respect and stability, the workforce cannot survive humanely or afford to raise families. The treatment of haken workers is the visible tip of a much larger iceberg of unstable, non-regular employment.
Who is responsible for haken?
Companies that use dispatch labor have contracts with staffing agencies that supply temporary labor. On paper, the workers are employed by the agency, which takes a cut of the fee paid by the firm as compensation for finding and dispatching the worker. The agency is responsible for pay and benefits, as well as for directing the work of the dispatched workers. In practice, once agency temporary workers enter a workplace, particularly in factories, they often take orders directly from the company and face pressure to work like regular employees. This includes pressure to work unpaid overtime.
Such violations of the law have become clearly visible only recently. A spate of lawsuits and protests, such as the haken village, industrial accidents involving inadequately trained haken factory workers, and homeless haken workers sleeping in Internet cafes and 24-hour fast-food restaurants, have made the problems clear.
When firms that use haken labor face harsh economic conditions, they can terminate their contracts with the suppliers of the labor under specified conditions. The workers, many of whom are living hand-to-mouth in company-supplied dormitories, have no recourse against this sudden termination, which may come before the expiry of their personal contracts with the temp agency. Upon termination, they are obliged to leave their company lodgings. Individual contract workers face the same dilemma.
The government is worried about layoffs of such vulnerable workers and has made efforts to find housing for those who have lost jobs. It has also expressed concern that this style of work will continue to spread, increasing poverty and making family formation more difficult. There is fear that irresponsible treatment related to haken workers will become institutionalized. Illegal variants of haken are increasing and the number of companies being disciplined for violating the current law is growing.
At issue is a legal distinction about who bears responsibility for managing workers. The practice of treating workers like non-regular, haken workers when it comes to salary and dismissal, but treating them like regular workers when it comes to duties and hours is illegal. Workers at subcontractors (ukeoi) may remain employed by their firms even when contracts with larger firms are terminated. However, when haken contracts are terminated, the haken agencies seldom assume responsibility for workers. Indeed, haken agencies sometimes fail to pay all wages due. The agencies may also skim additional fees from workers’ pay or neglect to pay social insurance payments that workers must make in order to be eligible for unemployment benefits.
Laid-off haken workers thus fall into a gap where there is little or no safety net. Some workers have tried to fight dismissal, arguing that the firms in which they have been working have an obligation to keep them there. Some have worked beyond the statutory time limits for temporary labor, and many have been taking orders directly from the firm’s bosses just like the regular employees.
They have argued that in such a situation, a tacit contract between the worker and the firm exists and that it should take precedence over the dispatch agreement between the staffing agency and the firm. But officials in companies that use haken labor have refused even to accept worker petitions or meet with such dismissed haken workers. Firms say, “You don’t work for us so we are not responsible for you.”
Proposed reforms to protect haken workers
To stem the rising tide of inequality, the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is to introduce a legislative proposal to re-regulate the use of dispatch workers as part of an overhaul of the Labor Standards Law when parliament opens on January 26. The aim is to protect haken workers from sudden forced dismissal, and to redress the perception that bureaucratic inaction has transformed haken workers into the working poor.
The reform aims to strengthen worker protections and restore “regular” employment as the norm by eliminating loopholes currently exploited by employers, and providing swift and appropriate punishment of future violations.
Under the proposal, temporary staffing agencies that hire workers for a certain period (currently unspecified) will have a duty to make effort to shift those workers to “regular” employment status. When considering the wages of haken workers, equivalence with the salaries of the regular workers in the firms to which they are dispatched will be considered. The charges for dispatching workers will be made clear to workers and agencies will be required to make public the margin they take, that is the often sizable difference between the dispatch charges paid by the firm to the agency and the wages the agency pays to workers.
Under the proposed revisions, only dispatch for regular employment would be permitted. Dispatch for short terms of less than two months, dispatch of day laborers, and dispatch in manufacturing are to be banned “in principle”, as is dispatch for replacement of regular workers. So-called touroku-gata haken, the dispatch of workers who register with the agency and are called upon when there is work, will also be banned; however, there will be exceptions in 26 selected occupations. Clearly, the aim of the proposed revision is to increase regular employment and determine the locus of responsibility for worker welfare.
But the way forward is not clear. The 26 “specialized” occupations to be exempted currently employ about half of Japan’s 2.2 million dispatch workers, and lawyers say the vague definitions of the exempt occupations will invite abuse and undermine the effectiveness of the proposed law. Furthermore, some, mostly young, workers appreciate the freedom and relatively lucrative nature of haken. In consequence of the temporary nature of the work, it usually pays slightly more than working for subcontractors, which have higher fixed costs than temp agencies. Nor does haken entail the long hours or heavy demands of regular employment.
Furthermore, the proposal does not obligate firms to negotiate collectively with unions on issues related to dispatched workers, nor would firms that use dispatched labor be obliged to share responsibility for unpaid wages or benefits. Vague definitions and the as yet undetermined time period for implementation of the reforms are other likely sticking points.
As for sanctions, if firms knowingly violate the new law, treating haken labor as subcontract labor, the MHLW will regard the situation as an implicit labor contract. Workers treated thus will have the option of asking to be hired directly and firms will be obliged to hire them. However, it is important to note that the Supreme Court recently ruled against a worker in just such a case, establishing a precedent that poses a preemptive challenge to this portion of the revision. The ultimate form of the proposal will be shaped by debates in and out of the Diet, or parliament, over the coming months.
For their part, employers, too, find problems with the proposal. They argue that if touroku haken is banned, it will produce a flood of layoffs, increasing unemployment. They say that the proposal will be especially harsh for smaller businesses, which do not have enough steady work to justify hiring subcontractors and so depend on being able to bring in registered temporary workers on short notice when they need additional hands.
As the working class goes, so goes Japan
It is clear that the boom in temporary staffing agencies has been instrumental in widening the working-class divide. A class of non-regular workers, who often do the same work as regular workers but receive lower wages and enjoy less stability, has been the outcome. Consequences include the increase in dispossessed individuals, families living on the edge, damaged pride, increasing anger, a sense of real betrayal, and the stirrings of class conflict in a country that has long prided itself on keeping class differences obscure.
Rallies and study sessions are planned around the country in the coming months so that workers can study the proposal and voice their opinions. Labor advocates see the proposed haken reform as at best a piecemeal effort. If enacted, it will be impossible to repeal, and its loopholes will become part of the social fabric.
Workers who feel they are being used illegally will continue to have little choice or recourse. Penalties for labor law violations are generally limited to administrative guidance and warnings. These activists argue that fundamental reform is needed. They say that only guaranteeing all workers equal legal rights and status can neutralize employers’ current incentives to abuse both low-status workers and the law.
The revised law’s name and goal are the same: “Protection of Dispatch Workers”. However, at issue are not just conditions for haken workers but Japan’s system of employment in general. Many workers today are forced to accept unstable, non-regular employment even though they would prefer the long-term stability of regular employment. There are more than 3.5 million unemployed, many eager for any work at all. And there is a minority who favor non-regular work because it fits their lifestyle goals. They do not want the burdens of regular employment, but they may find their chosen occupation on prohibited haken list.
The debate over proposed haken and other labor reforms is of crucial importance to Japan’s future. The shape of the society is implicit in the outcome. It is a story that should be able to challenge the Okinawa base squabbles and the endless rounds of political corruption for front-page space.
Piecemeal temp jobs at agencies face ban
An advisory panel to the labor minister issued a report Monday recommending that staffing agencies be prohibited from registering workers on individual contracts for specific jobs that pay only when work is available.
The report, which also proposes banning the practice of sending workers for short-term manufacturing jobs, comes in line with a government plan to submit a bill to the Diet to improve the working conditions of temporary staff by tightening the law regulating their dispatch.
About 2.02 million people worked as temp staff as of June 2008, and some 440,000 of them would likely be subject to the proposed regulations, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
The move, aimed at stabilizing employment, signifies a policy shift to tighten control on the temporary worker system, which has experienced gradual deregulation in staffing services since the law took effect in 1986.
The subcommittee’s report recommends prohibiting the dispatch of temp workers on a registration basis, except for 26 types of jobs that require professional skills and expertise, including secretarial work and translation, and jobs involving the dispatch of elderly workers.
It also seeks a ban on dispatching temporary workers for manufacturing jobs, except in cases where staffing agencies conclude long-term job contracts with workers.
For clarification, the regulations will be put into practice on a date set by ordinance within three years after the revised law is promulgated.
Among registration-basis temp jobs, those that match the needs of workers and face few problems, including clerical jobs, will be prohibited after five years at the latest.
Conditions of so-called registered temp workers – those who register with staffing companies and get an employment contract only for the duration of a job – are particularly poor, critics say.
Revision to dispatch law
The global recession that started in autumn last year has dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of temporary and other nonregular workers at this time of economic contraction.
In response, the government started reviewing the worker dispatch law at the Labor Policy Council, which advises Akira Nagatsuma, the minister of health, labor and welfare. The council has come up with an outline of a bill to revise the law.
According to the outline, the revision would, in principle, ban companies from using registration type of recruiting, in which employment contracts are drawn up only when there are jobs for dispatched workers. The ban would not be applied to 26 job categories that demand a high level of skill, such as interpreters. The ban would not apply to aged dispatched workers as well.
Supplying haken dispatched workers for manufacturing jobs would be allowed only for positions for what is essentially regular work in which individuals have a reasonable chance of winning a relatively long-term labor contract with the companies that recruit them. This is a key issue because of the large number of dispatched workers in manufacturing who lost their jobs after economic conditions slid and manufactures moved to trim their payrolls.
Supplying temps for day-labor jobs–the most unstable form of employment–would also be prohibited, except for limited categories. The revision would also require companies to stop treating subcontractors as effectively dispatched workers who are subject to company supervision. If such practices are found, the new regulation will regard those firms as having hired these workers.
There is strong opposition to the proposed steps within the business community. Critics say banning the registration system to recruit dispatched workers and the supply of temps on a daily basis would raise unemployment by making it harder for companies to use haken workers.
Others argue that tightening the regulation on supplying dispatched workers to manufacturers would prompt more companies to shift production overseas, causing further jobs losses. These arguments, however, don’t present a strong case for allowing nonregular workers to bear the brunt of the economic downturn as people who can be brought in or laid off more easily than regular employees.
Past revisions to the worker dispatch law have basically eased the regulations on the dispatched-worker industry to promote labor liquidity. The new proposals are significant in that they would change policy by protecting workers.
The envisioned change, however, would leave some problems unsolved. Even the hiring of people on a dispatched basis–for less than a year, for instance–could be regarded as almost regular employment. Workers under subcontracts who are treated effectively as temps would be regarded as employees directly hired by the companies that use them, but only for the period of their contracts with the companies that supplied them. This could lead to a situation where companies that use temps would not take sufficient responsibility for the well-being of these individuals. The bans on the registration-type recruitment of dispatched workers and the supply of temps to manufacturers would take effect only three to five years after the revised law is proclaimed.
The Diet should discuss these and other related issues, including arguments by employers, during the regular session to be convened in January. The revision of the law would not address all the problems concerning nonregular workers. There is still a basic problem facing the government and society as a whole.
The wide disparity in incomes between regular and nonregular workers due to the lack of recognition of dispatched and other nonregular positions as legitimate options to increase diversity in workstyles has become a major issue. The principle of the same pay for the same work is the norm in Europe. It may be unrealistic to expect an early introduction of this principle in Japan. But serious efforts should be made to establish this rule.
There should be limits to the renewals and periods of contracts with nonregular workers to reduce the benefits for companies of depending on such workers as a buffer against a downturn.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200912290117.html
Bans eyed to help dispatch workers
To help those most vulnerable in economic downturns, the labor ministry decided to ban, in principle, “registration-type” dispatches, in which staffing agencies conclude contracts with workers only for their dispatch periods, sources said.
The ministry also decided Tuesday to prohibit the staffing agencies from sending blue-collar workers to manufacturing industries for short-term work, they said.
The measures will be incorporated in revisions to the workers dispatch law, which are scheduled to be submitted to the ordinary Diet session starting next month.
The ministry plans to put the new measures into effect within three years after promulgation to ensure enough time to prepare for the drastic change.
During the global financial crisis, those on registration-type dispatches were among the first to lose their jobs, and often their homes, once their contract periods expired. Many of these workers had been sent to manufacturing industries.
The ministry’s plan is to help these workers get longer-term contracts and more stable employment.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200912170129.html
Number of temporary workers in Japan up 4.6% in fiscal 2008
Japan saw the number of temporary workers rise by 4.6 percent in fiscal 2008, a survey released by the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare showed on Thursday.
The number of workers now on temporary contracts stood at 3.99 million for fiscal 2008, in a country that was once known for companies that gave their staff jobs for life.
The survey compiled numbers from 66,424 businesses that declared their employment records to the government in the fiscal year that ended on March 31. In recent years, Japan has seen the number of temporary workers on its books increase, as the baby boomer generation begins to retire, and company workers are replaced by people hired from outside agencies.
In fiscal 2007, the nation saw the number of temporary workers increase by 18.7 percent.
Temporary workers are afforded less rights under the Japanese labor law, and can often be dismissed with very short notice and little compensation.
In the aftermath of the credit crisis that started in the United States last year, many temporary workers were left jobless with little money last winter.
The figures for 2008 showed that 2.81 million people were employed on short-term contracts with companies. The 1.18 million workers were in dispatched to companies on long-term contracts.
The governing Democratic Party of Japan said in its election manifesto this summer that it aims to improve the nation’s employment conditions, and “ban, in principle, the dispatch of temporary workers to manufacturing jobs.” The figures released Thursday showed that the number of temporary workers in manufacturing jobs had risen by 19.6 percent from the previous year to 560,000 people on June 1, 2008.
Critics of the temporary worker system have argued that the insecure nature of the jobs provides a great deal of benefits for large companies, but is on the whole detrimental to society.
In the last year, Japan has struggled to bounce back after suffering a downturn in the aftermath of the credit crisis, with weak employment and bad conditions for households preventing growth in the manufacturing sector from turning into a sustained recovery.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/26/content_12542627.htm
English instructors hired illegally: union
A labor union of foreign workers requested Monday that the Aichi prefectural board of education address the concerns of English-language instructors at public schools who they say are working under illegal contracts.
The [NUGW Tokyo Nambu sister union] General Union, based in the city of Osaka, said an investigation it conducted last month and communications with municipal boards of education show that foreign teaching assistants in 16 school districts in the prefecture are contracted by private language schools or other agents rather than the school boards themselves.
The union charges that by going through agencies, the school boards are “avoiding the obligation of hiring them directly that comes after a certain period of (temporary) employment has elapsed.”
“It is lowering the quality of education as the situation generates anxiety (among instructors) about their employment and does not guarantee continuity in classroom teaching,” the union said.
The union alleges the instructors’ employment terms are in violation of the Worker Dispatch Law.
The Tokai municipal board of education is “especially malicious in that (it) has refused a demand for collective bargaining,” the union said. It filed an appeal with the Aichi labor bureau to address the situation with the Tokai board.
In 2007, English-language instructors in 23 school districts in Osaka Prefecture faced a similar employment issue. After the revelation of their situation, the local labor bureau issued instructions and the municipal boards of education switched to direct hiring or legal labor contracting.