Japanese unions to organize precarious workers

IMF’s Japanese affiliate IMF-JC wants to improve the working conditions of precarious workers and makes a strong international commitment in its new Action Program. JAW plans to organize 26,000 workers in the automotive industries.

JAPAN: IMF affiliate IMF-JC re-elected Koichiro Nishihara as president and Hideyuki Wakamatsu as general secretary at its 49th Annual Convention on September 7 in Tokyo. For the first time, two women representatives were elected to the Japanese Council’s executive committee.

The Convention’s 230 delegates adopted a new Action Program 2011-2012, which seeks to improve the living standards and working environment of metalworkers. The program emphasizes the need for sustainable industrial policies, cutting-edge technologies and education to revitalize the manufacturing industries as an engine for growth.

Special attention is paid on improving the conditions of precarious or non-regular workers, who account for a third of the workforce in Japan. According to government statistics, non-regular workers earn about 50 per cent of the annual income of regular workers in manufacturing industries.

The Action Program makes a strong commitment to the work of IMF and to developing links with metalworkers’ unions in the Asia-Pacific region and in other parts of the world. IMF-JC pledges to foster healthy labour-management relations in Japanese corporations abroad.

IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina addressed the Convention and held a teach-in session on on trade union networks in transnational corporations. IMF-JC decided to continue examining suitable forms of coordination of networks in selected Japanese corporations.

On September 9, the Confederation of Japanese Automobile Workers (JAW) re-elected Koichiro Nishihara as president and Yasunobu Aihara as general secretary. President Nishihara told the 580 delegates that JAW had set the target of organising 26,000 non-regular workers in the automotive industries, and stopping the growth of precarious employment.

Nishihara spoke about the need to guaranteee workers’ rights in free trade agreements. He pledged JAW’s solidarity with unions in other countries and support to solving problems in Japanese automotive companies abroad.Sep 17, 2010 – Anita Gardner, http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?l=2&c=24047&nb=2