It can be said that repeated concessions by the ruling parties, which gave consideration to opposition standpoints and cautious views, helped lay the foundation for the passage of a package of work style reform bills through the House of Representatives. The bill should be deliberated meticulously in the House of Councillors, as well, to obtain the people's understanding of the legislation.
The bills related to work style reform, viewed by the government as the most important legislation in the current Diet session, have been sent to the upper house after being approved by a majority vote with support from the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito plus Nippon Ishin no Kai and Kibo no To (Party of Hope) at the plenary session of the lower house.
Aimed at correcting long working hours, the bills are designed to introduce overtime regulations that set a cap and are to be enforced with penalties. To resolve the unfair differences between the treatment of regular and nonregular workers, the measure is aimed at promoting a system of equal pay for equal work. These are pillars of the bills.
It is highly significant that the bills are designed to rectify labor practices and thus improve the treatment of nonregular workers. The bills should definitely be enacted.
The ruling parties have agreed with Ishin and Kibo on modifying the bills. The modification incorporates a regulation that would allow highly skilled professionals to break away from the discretionary working system on their own will, even if they once agreed to the system.
The new system is designed to exclude some professional jobs, including foreign exchange dealers, from the work hour regulation and determine wages based on work results. The system, aimed at enhancing efficiency and the degree of freedom for work styles, meets the needs of the times.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe once tried to establish legislative arrangements on work style, but abandoned the bid in the face of opposition.
Dispel anxiety of workers
This time, the ruling parties have been able to secure approval from more opposition parties, a laudable move. The modified bills made through joint efforts of the ruling and opposition parties could contribute to boosting workers' sense of security.
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other parties that oppose the bills call for eliminating a provision designed to exclude highly skilled professionals from the work hour regulation, criticizing the provision as encouraging "long working hours." Their stance of unnecessarily inflaming workers' anxiety must be called into question.
In the process of deliberations on the bills, the CDPJ and some other opposition parties submitted a censure motion against the chairman of the lower house Committee on Health, Labor and Welfare and a no-confidence motion against the health, labor and welfare minister, with both being voted down. These moves were only for the sake of resistance to delay a vote on the bills. Such an outdated parliamentary tactic cannot win the people's support.
The ruling parties had aimed to pass the bills through the lower house on Tuesday, but postponed it out of consideration for the CDPJ and other opposition parties. Eventually, the opposition parties agreed to hold a vote on the bills.
In the upper house, deliberations should be deepened on a system to prevent overwork and steps to ensure health.
In connection with the bills, flaws were revealed in the data compiled by the ministry on working hours. The flaws included a case in which hours of overwork were shown exceeding 24 hours in one day. One abnormality after another was thereafter found in the ministry's data. This indicates that the ministry's compilation of the data was too sloppy.
The ministry bears a heavy responsibility for causing the public to regard labor administration with doubt. The government should explain the bills sufficiently and strive to dispel the anxiety of workers.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 1, 2018)
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