Lifetime Dispatched Workers

One of the biggest partisan issues for coming months in National Diet is amendment of Dispatched Workers Law. For leading parties, the law is needed to be more useful for employers. But, opposite parties have been criticizing it as fixation of unstable status of the workers. The administration failed to pass the bill twice, faced by solid opposition. This issue will be a litmus test for the Diet whether minority can challenge the great leading coalition.

Current Dispatched Workers Law mandates employers not to hire dispatched temporary workers, except twenty-six designated experts, over three years. When a dispatched worker reaches the limit of three years, the employer needs to consider changing status of the worker to regular employment. Employer cannot employ a worker in the status of dispatched forever.

The amendment abolishes the twenty-six exemptions and applies three-year limit to all workers. Although it looks like an improvement for all workers, bureaucrats inserted invisible merit for employers. In amended Dispatched Workers Law, an employer will be able to hire dispatched worker forever, if he or she introduces new dispatched worker every three years. At the time of three years limit, a dispatched worker may be replaced with new dispatched worker.

Opposite parties, including Democratic Party of Japan, Communists and Social Democrats, criticize the amendment as “lifetime dispatching law.” They claim that the law will increase young workers who have to work as “dispatched” with no opportunity to have stable regular job.

Dispatched working became the biggest problem under LDP administration in the first decade of twenty-first century. With introduction of new liberalism by Prime Minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi, separation between workers with regular employment and dispatched workers became wider. In many offices, discrimination based on workers’ status was prevalent. Power harassment in the offices became a typical violation of human rights in Japan. Frustration over labor policy led to collapse of LDP administration.

In last two sessions of the Diet, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare made minor mistakes in building perfect structure of new labor dispatching. Opposite parties could kill the bill in spite of their numeral inferiority. In the situation when Shinzo Abe administration puts top priority on security legislation, it is unclear whether the government can keep political momentum for the labor issue. If Abe uses majority power in every controversial issue, people will be more skeptical on his handling in politics.