Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

900 axed Japan JNR rail unionists may get ¥29.5 million each in new deal
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100225a2.html

Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010

900 axed JNR unionists may get ¥29.5 million each
Kyodo News
A 23-year-old dispute over the dismissal of unionized workers at the Japanese National Railways may finally be heading toward a resolution now that the ruling bloc and an opposition party have drafted a ¥27 billion settlement plan.

The package, hammered out Tuesday by the three coalition partners andNew Komeito, calls for a payment of ¥29.5 million each to about 900 former JNR workers who have sued over their dismissal and asks the current Japan Railway companies to hire about 230 of them who are 55 years old or younger, according to sources.

In exchange, the workers will drop their lawsuits.

The proposed ¥27 billion payout would be undertaken by the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an independent administrative agency that inherited JNR's debts after it was privatized and split up in 1987.

Representatives of the railway agency and the National Railway Workers Union, known as Kokuro, are expected to sign a compromise deal based on the package, the sources said.

Japan Airlines to file for bankruptcy protection
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8466997.stm

Page last updated at 05:34 GMT, Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Japan Airlines to file for bankruptcy protection

The company has lost billions in market value over the past week
Japan Airlines (JAL), Asia's biggest air carrier, is due to file for bankruptcy protection, reports say.
JAL - which has $16.5bn (£10bn) of debts - is expected to make the move after a board meeting later on Tuesday.
JAL shares fell to an all-time low on Monday, valuing the firm at just $150m - roughly the price of a new jumbo jet.
Japan's government says flights will continue as normal as JAL begins restructuring under the supervision of a state-backed turnaround organisation.
A third of JAL's workforce - more than 15,000 people - are expected to lose their jobs, the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says.
Banks will have to write off unsecured debt and JAL will receive an injection of taxpayers' money, our correspondent adds.
While the turnaround plan backed by the government will see the airline continue to fly, investors in the company are likely to lose most of their money.
Along with other major global airlines, JAL has been hit hard by falling passenger numbers during the global downturn.

JAL to cut 15,600 jobs, reject cash bids
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100111p2g00m0bu003000c.html

JAL to cut 15,600 jobs, reject cash bids

TOKYO (AP) -- Troubled Japan Airlines Corp. is set to cut about 15,600 jobs, a third of its work force, and reject billion-dollar cash offers from Delta and American Airlines, as it files for bankruptcy and embarks on a government-led turnaround, reports said Monday.

Under a rehabilitation plan now being hammered out by a state-backed corporate turnaround body, JAL would make the job cuts during the three fiscal years through March 2013. The plan would include a fresh investment of 300 billion yen ($3.3 billion) by the body and wipe much of its soaring debts under bankruptcy protection.

Officials at JAL, the transport ministry and the turnaround body could not be reached for comment Monday, a national holiday in Japan. The stock market was also closed.

The state-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. of Japan will decline cash offers from Delta and American Airlines as it fears giving foreign carriers a foreign stake in the company would complicate the restructuring, according to media reports.

Instead, the airline will pursue only greater cooperation with either Delta or American, the business daily Nikkei said Sunday. The turnaround body will pick one of the U.S. carriers as JAL's partner after February, it said.

JAL's biggest union to accept massive benefit cuts
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091230n1.html

Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009

JAL's biggest union to accept massive benefit cuts
Compiled from Kyodo, Bloomberg
The leadership of the largest labor union of Japan Airlines Corp. plans to accept a company proposal to cut pension benefits substantially to help the ailing airline turn itself around, according to union sources.

The 9,500-strong union, known as JAL Friendship & Improvement Organization, or JALFIO, reached the decision because changing thepension system is "a necessary step" at present, and cuts in benefits would help the recovery of the airline, which is "the source of welfare," the sources said.

The decision is expected to influence individual union members. Members will still decide for themselves whether to vote for or against the cuts, said Hideshi Takahashi, general secretary of the union.

Earlier this month, two of JAL's other unions also agreed to pension cuts. The airline has eight unions.

Japan's top airline, suffering from heavy losses, has sent out letters to its retirees and current workers to seek their approval for cuts to their pension benefits and is expected to receive their replies by Jan. 12.

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:

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200912050155.html

No charges again for ex-JR West chiefs
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2009/12/5PrintShare Article
KOBE--Prosecutors on Friday decided for the second time not to indict three former West Japan Railway Co. presidents over the April 2005 train derailment that killed 107 people.

Prosecutors said Masataka Ide, Shojiro Nanya and Takeshi Kakiuchi were not aware of the dangers of the curve on the JR Takarazuka Line where the accident took place.

However, the three will be forcibly indicted by a court-designated lawyer if eight or more members of an 11-member inquest committee decide they should be indicted.

The panel concluded in October that the three should be charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury on the grounds that they failed to order the installation of a new automatic train stop system.(IHT/Asahi: December 5,2009)

The following resolution was passed at an International Labor Conference in Japan on October 31, 2009 hosted by the railroad workers union Doro-Chiba.

Support ILWU Local 10 members Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrision-Stop Terrorizing Transport Workers and Murdering Immigrants Like Luis Gutierrez -Prosecute Yolo County Corporate Criminal Pam Marrone

This conference calls for international labor support for two black San Francisco longshoremen, Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrison, were working in the port of Sacramento two years ago. They were racially profiled, targeted and viciously attacked by West Sacramento police called in by SSA terminal guards. One was pulled out of his car, beaten, maced, and handcuffed. The other was handcuffed and forced to wait in a police car with windows rolled up and temperatures inside rising over 100 degrees. Finally, this week after two years, Jason was found "not guilty" by jurors. Aaron awaits trial on November 12 at the Woodland courthouse. This attack on them is part and parcel of the use of the anti-labor TWIC program which supposedly protects "security" but has been used against US transportation workers to target mostly Latino and Black workers. The ILWU Local 10 longshore union is mobilizing the Sacramento labor movement to demand justice for Aaron Harrison, that the bogus charge of "resisting arrest" be dropped. All world unions and labor should rally to their defense with statements of solidarity and actions when possible.

10/1/2009 Strike Action By Japan Doro-Chiba To Protest Retaliation Against Union

Declaration of 38th Convention

September 28, 2009

Doro-Chiba (National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba)

We declare, here in the 38th regular convention, our decision on a policy for a fresh struggle on total examination of our practice in the past months of this year, a year of 30th anniversary of the founding of Doro-Chiba.

The whole world is precipitated in a global economic crisis. Administration of each country that has spent a tremendous amount of public fund to bail out corporations now claim that the depression has already reached its bottom and that the current crisis is overcome. It’s a downright lie. The world economy is rapidly contracting and a violent collapse of dollar is impending. The rate of unemployment is reaching 10% in US as well as in EU countries and further aggravation of job situation is anticipated. Japan is no exception. State finance is in bankruptcy with accumulated fiscal deficit surpassing \800 trillion ($8 trillion). Substantial jobless rate has reached 13% and working class is under a violent assault of wage cut. The number of people who committed suicide amounts 30,000 in each ten consecutive years. Education, medical service, pension and social security systems are collapsing.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090926a1.html

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009

2005 accident report leaked to JR West
Panel denies impact on findings
Kyodo News
A member of the government's transport accident investigation commission leaked a draft report about the fatal 2005 Amagasaki train derailment in Hyogo Prefecture to West Japan Railway Co., government officials revealed Friday.

Make it go away: Masao Yamazaki, former president of West Japan Railway Co., speaks at a news conference in Osaka on Friday. KYODO PHOTO

Koichi Yamaguchi, then a member of the Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission, handed the panel's draft report to Masao Yamazaki, then president of JR West, shortly before the panel's final report was released on June 28, 2007, the commission's successor, the Japan Transport Safety Board, said.

In response to Yamazaki's repeated requests, Yamaguchi handed over the draft and also called for deleting from the report a clause disadvantageous to JR West saying the accident could have been avoided if the railway operator had installed an automatic train stopping system, or ATS.

Yamaguchi made the call at a panel session convened to compile the final report on the cause of the accident, the board said. Yamaguchi's argument was rejected, it said.

1047 Raiload withdraw fired!
Worker Dispatch Law elimination!
Prevent constitutional amendment! Aso overthrow the government!
6.14 total employees nationwide pep rally
▼ Date: Sunday, June 14 13:00
▼ Location: Tokyo's park district Thursday B
(Keyaki Namiki)

Law and Political repression crushing student!
6.15 pep rally of the total suppression of anti-labor
▼ Houdai surrounded a series of demonstrations
Togo Park rally 11:00
The first two Houdai ▼ siege demo
12:30外濠Park rally

Demands
*Reinstate 1047 dismissed National Railway Workers!
*Abolish Workers Dispatch Law!
*Stop firing 3.6 millions public workers!
*Fight back against crackdown on Hosei students!
*Don't deploy the SDF troops off the coast of Somalia!
*Stop constitutional revision!
*Overthrow Aso administration!

www.doro-chiba.org