WOMEN-JAPAN: Enough with Pushing Part-time Workers Around

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Nov 16 1999 (IPS) - She says she worked as hard as any of her male colleagues at a local company. But after seven years of being employed there, Kyoko (not her real name) was told recently that she was being let go.

Kyoko, 32, thinks she was selected for dismissal because “I have asthma”. But labour activists say her being a female part-time worker made her an especially vulnerable candidate for being laid off, at a time when companies throughout recession-hit Japan are looking for ways to trim their expenses.

Indeed, in recent months, the letters to the editor section in many Japanese newspapers have been filled with complaints from women who say they have been at the receiving end of their companies’ restructuring efforts.

But what is not so obvious, say activists, is that many of these women are actually part-time workers whose rights are often overlooked. That is why, the activists add, companies find it no problem to dismiss them, even if a significant number of these women had been their employees for years.

Comments Keiko Tani of the Women’s Union Tokyo: “Women in particular, because they make up the major number of part-time workers, have to swallow the bitter pill of losing their jobs and with it their independence.”

According a Management and Coordination study of labour in the fiscal year 1998, about 7.56 million women work part-time, or just about 37 percent of the total number of employed women in Japan.

Part-time work, however, is dominated by women. A recent survey conducted by a non-government organisation (NGO), for example, reveals that only 25 percent of the 2,300 respondents working part- time turned out to be male.

At the Daiei Inc, the country’s largest supermarket chain, almost all of its 36,000 part-timers are women. In contrast, a mere quarter of its 15,000 full-time workforce is female.

Labour experts say women all too willingly take on part-time jobs because they think it will mean shorter hours and therefore more time for their families. But while the law defines part-time work as something that would take less than 35 hours a week, activists say most female part-time employees often work more hours than this.

The women are also led to believe that they are not entitled to the benefits given to the other workers. At Daiei, for instance, part-timers are paid an hourly wage and receive no bonus. They are also expected to work eight hours each day, which means a total of 40 hours for a five-day workweek.

But an official at the Women’s Labour Section at the Labour Ministry says that employment laws do not really differentiate full-timers from the part-timers in terms of benefits.

“The only difference,” she says, “is that part-timers are not allowed long childcare leave. What we are planning to do is to let more companies know about this so that women part-timers will be treated better.”

Still, Sogo Yoshimiya of Rengo, Japan’s largest labour union, says that Japan lags behind the International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards regarding part-time work, adding that the ILO has guidelines that clearly state both full- and part-time employees must enjoy similar benefits.

He hints that the reason why the Japanese government has not been paying too much attention to the plight of part-time workers is because most of them happen to be women. Traditionally, he says, women workers have been looked upon as “supporting labour” to male employees who make up the mainstream workforce of the company.

Yoshimiya says the government must rid itself of this viewpoint. “We are fighting for more effective laws to deal with unscrupulous companies,” he says. “The flood of complaints we get from women is not going to go away if the government will not cooperate and set up a stronger legal base for us.”

Activists say it is about time the government steps in because with the ongoing recession, jobseekers will find it hard to turn down work contracts even if these do not respect workers’ rights.

Thus, in an effort to pressure the government and companies to pay more attention to women part-time workers, several NGOs last week launched a 10-day “part-time workers campaign” in Tokyo.

Among those who have participated in the awareness campaign so far is Kyoko, who remains out of work. There is also Reiko (not her real name), who asked some of the organisers for advice on how to find another job after being given a month’s notice by the management at a hotel in Kyushu.

At least, she says, they told her the bad news politely. But Reiko adds, “This happened a few weeks after I told them I was pregnant. I gritted my teeth and accepted the decision because my one-year contract did not include maternity leave.”

Activists say, though, that the government is bound to finally notice part-time workers anytime soon. As lifetime employment disappears in many companies and unemployment increases, the activists figure that more male workers will take on part-time work. This, activists and analysts alike predict, may yet force Tokyo to stop ignoring contract workers. (IPS-END-ap-hd- lb-sk-cb-99)