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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.…
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Japan’s Unionization Rate Rises for First Time Since 1975
Japan’s overall unionization rate picked up for the first time since 1975, as the membership among regular employees has sharply increased, it was announced by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The estimated unionization rate (percentage of union members among all employees) for 2009 was 18.5 percent, up 0.4 points from the preceding year.,…
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1st rise in unionization in 34 years
The percentage of unionized workers rose for the first time since 1975–in part because of a drop in employee numbers amid the economic downturn, a labor ministry survey showed. Another reason cited was part-time workers joining labor unions at supermarket stores, restaurant chains and other businesses. The unionization rate rose 0.4 percentage point from a…
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Bar Association says martinis and legal advice a bad mix
A martini with two olives and a dash of legal advice? That’s the plan of a Tokyo lawyer who wants to open a bar where he would serve up both drinks and counsel, but the Daini Tokyo Bar Association is calling it a bad mix. According to 29-year-old attorney Jun Sotooka, the idea first came…
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Taxpayer ID number system a step closer
The government’s Tax Commission decided Sunday to launch in the new year a working group to study the introduction of a system to identify taxpayers by assigning them an ID number, according to government officials. The envisaged system would enable the government to collect all tax-related information about individual taxpayers, including the amount of their…
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Ministries joust over whether to up medical fees
The issue is one of the focal points in the compilation of the fiscal 2010 budget. If the government decides to raise the amount of medical remuneration in fiscal 2010, it will be the first such increase since fiscal 2000. “To restore the nation’s ailing health care system, we need to consider increasing government expenses…
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Senior immigration officer arrested on suspicion of corruption
A senior immigration officer arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes is believed to have told his briber to set up an office in Kawasaki as a front. Arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes in return for favors in the screening of residence permits for female bar workers was Masashi Ogura, 54, a chief screening officer…
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Japan’s ‘modern geisha’ to form labour union
Japan’s bar hostesses, often dubbed “modern geisha”, plan to form their first trade union next month to fight for better wages and conditions, a labour official said on Wednesday. Many “kyabakura-jo”, or cabaret club sisters, complain of unpaid wages and sexual harassment by their customers and employers, said Takeshi Suzuki, a senior official of a…
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A level playing field for immigrants
Despite Japan’s looming demographic disaster — you know, the aging society and population drop due to low birthrates and record-long life spans — we still have no immigration policy. No wonder: The people charged with dealing with non-Japanese (NJ) — i.e. the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration Bureau and sundry business-sector organizations — just police NJ…
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FOREIGNER SUFFRAGE
Local vote for foreign residents: time ripe? Permanent foreign residents of Japan may finally face a realistic chance of being granted local-level suffrage under the administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan, which has signaled a willingness to pursue such rights. Foreign nationals at present can’t vote in national or local-level polls, and changing…