Declaration of Doro-Chiba 68th Regular Committee Meeting
24 February, 2013
We proudly declare in the name of the 68th regular Doro-Chiba Committee Meeting that our 12-year struggle against the Japan Railway Company’s outsourcing of inspection and repair work and yard operation has marked a historic achievement and that we have adopted a new policy to launch a second round fight by the 2013 spring labor offensive.
Neoliberalism, the last resort of capitalist economy, is now collapsing. EU countries have gone into fiscal bankruptcy one after another, the US dollar is at risk of total breakdown and China’s bubble is bursting. Competitive devaluation of currencies unleashed a currency war. The capitalist system is now crashing, driving the whole world into the state of high joblessness and the danger of war.
The Abe administration was born with its plans of lifting Japan out of deflation. Abe pushes for “ten trillion yen supplementary budget”, “two hundred trillion yen public works investment in a decade” and “unlimited and unrestraint monetary easing”. But Japan’s accumulated debt is well over a thousand trillion! This is a catastrophic policy which leads Japan to bankruptcy.
A grim reality awaits working class people. Sales tax hike is planned. The unemployment rate will soon reach the most serious level by the government’s de-regulation policy. The Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is spearheading in implementing total privatization of public service and dismantlement of the social security system. We can scarcely live!
The year 2013 will be the start of further collapse of employment and so the spring labor offensive of 2013 faces quite a critical moment. The management has already sent out a provocative message: “The focus of the dispute of this year’s spring labor offensive is to redefine (in fact, to abolish) the yearly pay increase system”. Let’s stage a strike with the lead of the cargo section members!
The jobs of inspection and repair were forcibly and disguisedly outsourced to a contractor, Chiba Train Service (CTS), last October 1st and 44 union members of Doro-Chiba were transferred to CTS. This transfer to a separate company lacks the necessary four conditions stipulated by law, and is evidently illegal job transfer. In the workplaces, where outsourcing has taken place, all kinds of irregularities are daily exposed to unable normal operation: disguised subcontract, violation of Labor Standards Act relating to overtime work agreement, loosening of safe drive rules, etc. Transferred workers are now faced with chaotic situation in workplace and full of anger.
In face of these terrible developments, we have decided our policy to continue to fight against outsourcing to the end through building up a fresh struggle for rail safety against rationalization. The first aim of outsourcing of JR-East is to reduce labor cost by casualization, and the second aim is to divide workers or bust our union. Inevitable result is collapse of rail safety. Let’s confront the “JR East Group Management Vision V” and crush outsourcing. Let’s combine the struggle in workplace and the struggle in the court.
We are now entering a critical phase of the struggle of the unduly dismissed 1047 national railway workers. The judgment over the Doro-Chiba members by the Tokyo District Court on June 29thlast year, which admitted that “the non-employment standard was fabricated by unlawful motivation and intention discriminating the unions that opposed to the division and privatization of National Railways”, should logically and inevitably lead to issue a judicial order to withdraw the unlawful discharge and to reinstate the plaintiffs to the jobs. But the court stopped short of it. Upholding the truth which exposed through 25-year struggle, let’s rise up for obtaining the High Court’s decision in our favor against Japanese National Railways Reform Act! We will put a victorious end to the vital issue of the Division and Privatization of National Railways. Let’s restore fighting labor movement!
Rail safety has been seriously aggravated. Once again, the case of broken of rail is frequently occurring. During this time, we have been waging struggle to drive safe, and forced the JR Chiba Branch Office to replace damaged rail for 160km. In less than 10 years, the same thing is repeated.
On March, the timetable of JR will be revised. The train of Kururi Line would be forced to run without conductors on board. This plan, however, totally neglects the dangerous large difference in floor height between train and platform on this line. There is no condition to secure passengers and the running of train in Kururi Line now. We oppose the running without conductors on board.
Brother Taki who was transferred to the station job 3 years and a month ago will be reinstated as the train driver. Also, we must take back Brother Kitajima, who is suffering the same job transfer. Let’s strengthen the struggle to abolish the so-called “Life-Cycle System (transfer of drivers to station jobs)”! Furthermore, there are union members; who were transferred and forced to remain at a station job for more than 26 years since the privatization of the National Railways. It is quite outrageous. We will take back them at any cost.
Two years have passed since the March 11th nuclear disaster. In spite of the declaration of the final settlement of the accident and the campaign for restoration, Fukushima is going to be abandoned intentionally. The reality is: 40% of the medically investigated children in Fukushima are found to have extraordinary situation of the thyroid and several cases of thyroid cancer are reported. And still, the medical authority in Fukushima denies the relation with the nuclear accident. Atom-mafia is again in full motion and actively engaged in promoting restart of nuclear plants all over Japan. Greedy business leaders are gathering around the restoration plan to make profit by the assistance of the government, which is pouring a large amount of budget to this purpose. Export of nuclear power plant is being promoted.
The struggle in Sanrizuka against the expansion of the Narita Airport at the sacrifice of the farmers is entering into a decisive stage. Brother Shito is confronted with the outrageous attempt of confiscating his farmland. Join us in the March 24th All-Japan Rally in Sanrizuka to stop this attack! Raise the banner of workers and farmers solidarity!
Workers of the whole world are furiously rising up: “Enough is enough!” Also in Japan, traditional view has been destroyed and is replaced by acute recognition of terrible reality of our society. Workers, unite! Raise your voices! Let’s act now! It’s urgent to recruit new members to our union. Let’s revive militant labor unions!