HEADQUARTERS
CONTEMPORARY FOODSTUFF PROBLEMS DISCUSSED
The research committee of foodstuff question held a regular meeting on January 14 in Tokyo, where Dr. Yokota (visiting researcher to Local Planning Center) gave a seminar on the title "How to give expression to the natural foodstuff (cultivated in the absence of artificial substances) by means of JAS (Japanese Agricultural Standard)", which was followed by enthusiastic discussion.
NATIONAL GATEHRING
11TH ANNIVERSARY EVENTS OF THE GREAT HANSHIN EARTHQUAKE ORGANIZED
On January 17, the 11th memorial gathering was held in Kobe City, where survivors reported how they had lived since the quake, and exchanged their views for establishing the official measures of rehabilitation. In the morning of the day of January 17, the anniversary event started at 5:46 a.m., the time when the quake just struck, a number of the gathered citizens offered a minute of silence, which was followed by various meetings, music performance, commemorative lectures, and an on-spot investigation of the rehabilitated "Nagata" area.
LOCAL ACTIVITIES IN DECEMBER (2005) AND JANUARY (2006)
1. OSAKA BRANCH
1) In the study group Contemporary capitalism on December 15 (2005), Prof. Suzuki (St. Andrews Univ.) gave a lecture on the present political world.
2) The study group Philosophy organized a meeting on December 22, where Dr. Komorita (Osaka branch) gave a lecture entitled "Thinking of the Constitution of Japan on the basis of Gandhifs non-violence thought".
3) The Kansai-area's colloquium for scientific workers in private enterprises was organized on January 8, where Dr. Kushimoto (Osaka branch) gave a seminar on the scientific workers' ethical code and the declaration for scientific workers' rights and status, which are widely discussed among the membership of the Association.
4) The study group Energy problems held a meeting on January 14, where Prof. Aoyama (Kinki Univ.) discussed the public consciousness for environmental problem on the basis of a private enterprise's questionnaire.
5) On January 14, the branch held a new-year lunch gathering, where so-called individual membership was especially welcomed. The participants exchanged their views freely and enjoyed the gathering.
2. TOKUSHIMA BRANCH
The branch organized a study meeting on December 22 (2005) at Tokushima University, where Prof. Yoshida (Tokushima Univ.) gave a report on the 28th National Symposium regarding to the Nuclear Power Generation Problems that had been held on September 10 and 11 (2005) in Kanazawa City (ref. JSANOW #171), which was followed by a view-exchange meeting.
3. KYOTO BARANCH
1) The Ryukoku University chapter organized a study meeting on December 16 (2005), where they discussed the high educational expenses in Japan on the basis of the idea "gradual introduction of free-of-cost education" and the Japanese tomorrow's education.
2) The individual membership organized the 25th regular meeting and a new-year gathering on January 7 at Kyoto University, where Dr. Yamatani (Kyoto branch) gave a talk related to the beef problems.
3) The branch held a council meeting to discuss the coming activity on January 14, which was followed by a new-year gathering, where the participants exchanged their views.
4. TOKYO BRANCH
The individual membership organized an on-spot investigation in Kawagoe area (part of old Tokyo) on December 23 (2005), which was followed by a year-end gathering to overview the coming year.
5. MIYAGI BRANCH
In a new-year exchange meeting held in Sendai City on January 21, Dr. Kaneda (Miyagi branch) gave a seminar entitled "Aggressive war in Iraq and the US's imperialism", which was followed by two reports of the 2005-summer school held in Okinawa. Afterwards, they enjoyed a new-year gathering.
6. SAITAMA BRANCH
The branch held a new-year study gathering on January 22, where they had three scientific lectures: (1) BSE (bovine spongeform encephalopathy), influenza and so on ? the 21st century is the century for infectious disease? (2) recent hot problem ? asbestos problems, and (3) effect of the gradual worsening of photochemical oxidants on plant.
7. KANAGAWA BRANCH
An exchange meeting for the membership was organized on January 28, where six members gave their research reports and views, which extremely encouraged the participants.
8. HYOGO BRANCH
A regular meeting was held on January 30 in Kobe City under the theme "The US's military base reshuffling and Okinawan today", where Dr. Kajimoto (Hyogo Conf. against A & H Bombs) gave a keynote report on the present situation in Okinawa, and Dr. Yokoyama (Hyogo branch) made a report of his on-spot investigation (December , 2005) in Okinawa.
CONSTRUCT A MOVEMENT AGAINST DEREGULATIONS IN LABOR LEGISLATION
On January 25, the Health, Labor and Welfare (HLW) Ministry study group on work hour legislation released a groupfs report proposing introducing a white-collar exemption on condition that workers satisfy certain requirements, resulting in more discriminative atmosphere in workplace. We have to promptly establish to defend workersf rights and eliminate illegal and discriminative practices from all the workplaces. We must push forward the movement to demand decent jobs and work conditions, with solidarity between regular and non-regular workers in all the work places, private or public.
The Japan's Labor Standards Law provides for an eight-hour day and a 40-hour week, and if workers work overtime or late-night work, they should be paid premium wages. If these regulations are lifted, workers will be forced to work without limits and without overtime pay. The deregulation will increase cases of unpaid overtime work and then finally deaths from overtime called Karoshi, giving strong and bad influence to all the workplace across the country. The present report describes that corporate would-be middle-management executives charging in a managerial position and project team leaders of corporate research and development sections could be exempted from working hour regulations. Workers in middle managerial jobs and project team leaders are forced to work excessively heavy workloads, which is now a big social problem. For example, the percentage of male workers in their 30s who work more than 60 hours a week increased to 23.8% (about 2 million) in 2004 from 20.3% (about 1.5 million) in 1993, which may perhaps result in a major cause of the falling birth rate in our country. The report proposes that exemption of particular categories of workers from working hour regulations should be in accordance with labor-management agreements. Rules to control working hours were established because if labor talks are allowed to decide on working hours, capitalists will undoubtedly impose long working hours on workers. To allow labor-management talks to decide on working hours will end up in laissez-faire for corporations. The range of white-collar workers satisfying certain requirements for being exempted from work hour regulations is not specified. According to the HLW Ministry, so-called white-collar workers such as those engaged in professional or technical jobs, and managerial, clerical, and sales jobs comprise 55.2% of the employed, totaling 29.54 million. Even though not all white-collar workers will be exempted from work hour regulations, there is the danger that targeted jobs will be unlimitedly increased as long as there is no legal limit and everything is left to labor-management talks in the absence of the legal standard.
The white-collar exemption was first called for by the Japan business circle (Keidan-ren), proposing that any worker with an annual income of over 4 million yen should be exempted from work-hour regulations. Coincidently the report states that one requirement for exemption is that the annual income of an applicant for exemption should not be less than that of workers who work under ordinary time-based work control representing so-called blue-collars. Cleary the report is designed to promote the Koizumi cabinetfs deregulation strategy on working hours. We have to make clear the present situation, under which regular workers are forced to work for extra hours without pay, while contingent workers on relatively stable jobs have to work for extremely low wages without workers' rights. Permitted this situation in the future, not only corporate workers but also all the governmental employers would strongly be affected, which brings about tough situation in every work place where they have to work for work without human rights. (S. YUASA)