Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Outsourcing of yard operation and inspection and repair work will cause the second and third Amagasaki rail accidents!
Stop such outrageous attempts!

It’s quite outrageous to practice total outsourcing of yard operation and inspection and repair work. It should not happen. If such an attempt is practiced, rail safety will collapse. The second and third Amagasaki rail accidents would be inevitable in the metropolitan areas.
The JR (Japan Railway) Company is going to abandon technological as well as business capacity indispensable for a railway company. The targets of outsourcing are: maintenance, inspection and repair work of vehicles, tracks, signals, communication and power systems, building works, station works, etc. All of these skills proper to the railroad and historical achievement for hundred and scores of years are going to be hastily abandoned by outsourcing.

JR is no longer “railway company”;
The JR Company is going to stop to be a railway company. A medium term business scheme in November 2000 titled “New Frontier 21” was the promoter of today’s outsourcing policy.
It stated as follows: “The time has come when the severe market principle, the principle of survival of the fittest and self-responsibility prevail in the society.” “This reform is the only way for corporations to survive and for the employees and their families to realize their happiness even though it will be accompanied by hardship and pain”. It was to be materialized in the “business strategy” that comprises:
(1) Development of the “Station Renaissance”
(2) Construction of new business model through introducing new technology headed by IT
(3) Railway business
(4) Business for life service
As for (1), it meant to install shops in station buildings. Stations were transformed into shopping malls. The main issue as for (2) is the introduction of electronic money system.
Astonishingly, (3) of railway business has been reduced to the third position of the whole business. Thus station service, conductor’s job, yard operation, inspection and repair work, and installation work were exposed to all-out attack of outsourcing.

Inverted railway business today;
It was the start of the inversion of railway business. The JR companies easily talk about “the severe market principle, principle of survival of the fittest” and “endurance of pain”. But its result will be a total collapse of rail safety. Grave railway accidents are inevitable if the core part of railway work is outsourced according to the idea that railway business is less profitable because it requires huge amount of money and personnel. It should not be allowed.
And who was after all forced to endure pain? It is working people in work place. While management executives have earned one billion yen (ten million dollars), workers who are real supporters of rail safety have been replaced by lower-paid irregularly employed workers without labor and welfare right. In 5 or 6 years since this business plan was put in practice, the labor cost of the JR East Company decreased by 85 million yen and the ordinary profit increased by 100 million yen. It is an easy gain! Instead rail safety was sacrificed. This is actually happening in Japan Railway Companies.

Wake up!;
Troubles occurred immediately. Three years after the total outsourcing of the track maintenance work to subcontract companies (2001), railroad transport faced extraordinary situation. “Broken rails” were found one after another in the business area of Chiba branch of JR East Company since 2004. Signal troubles, disconnection of overhead wires and construction errors took place one after another. It was said that there was not a single day when the trains were running normally in the Chuo-line (principal metropolitan commuter traffic). Finally in 2005, Amagasaki deadly railway accident (in west Japan) broke out followed by Uetsu-sen accident (in east Japan).
Excepting in the Chiba business area of JR East Company, where Doro-Chiba prevents company policy, outsourcing has gradually been practiced also in vehicle inspection and repair works and abolishment or merger of yards has been forced, causing frequent railway trouble due to defects of vehicles as we recently reported in this paper. Out of the sight of passengers, train drivers are surrounded by the notice papers warning that this vehicle is in trouble and needs to be repaired. In spite of this alarm, these defective vehicles are left unrepaired for a long time because of the lack of repair work personnel.
There is another example from the vehicle repair section: the company is running the trains composed of vehicles with abraded wheels beyond safety allowance. The company is thus sacrificing rail safety and exposing passengers to imminent danger.

The reality of the maintenance company;
We wonder how the JR companies dare to scheme total outsourcing of inspection and repair work, while bringing about this horrible reality by their own policy. To tell the truth, the actual business of Chiba Railway Service (a vehicle maintenance company), the subcontractor, is cleaning vehicles and it has no know-how on vehicle inspection and on shunting work in the yard. Moreover, the workers of this company are forced to work till 2:30 in the morning when they have no more train to go home.
Grave danger is anticipated also in the inspection work and the yard operation. When workers are put under inhuman working condition, it is impossible to expect complete work in inspection and repair work. For the company, safety drive is out of concern. Their primary concern is reducing cost and total outsourcing for that purpose.
The struggle against rationalization and for safe drive is the very life of Doro-Chiba. We are absolutely opposed to the outsourcing of inspection and repair work and yard operation.
Let’s fight!
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In Solidarity
International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba
H. Yamamoto
www.doro-chiba.org
bleve21@gmail.com