Solidarity with the struggling foreign workers in Japan! Crush neoliberalism of privatization and war by the united power of international solidarity!

Solidarity with the struggling foreign workers in Japan!

Crush neoliberalism of privatization and war by the united power of international solidarity!
Doro-Chiba Quake Report

October 1, 2014/issue 63

International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba (National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba)

Solidarity with the struggling foreign workers in Japan!

Crush neoliberalism of privatization and war by the united power of international solidarity!

October 1, 2014
International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba

Refugees speaks at the National Workers’ Rally on November 3, 2013 held in Hibiya Open-air Concert Hall in Tokyo. The banners read “don’t deport us with charted planes.” And “Treat refugees as human beings!”

Prime Minister Abe recently reshuffled its cabinet. It has brought forth an ultra-reactionary right wing government. 15 cabinet members out of 19 are from the Japan Conference, a notorious den of reactionaries. It is disclosed that three figures of the Abe administration had taken phots together with members of a Neo-Nazi organization* and other racists: they are Sanae Takaichi, Internal Minister; Tomomi Inada, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) policy chief and Eriko Yamatani, National Public Safety Commission Chair (Police Minister). Furthermore, people in Japan and around the world are outraged by their disguised “Hate Speech Regulation Project” that mainly discussed ban on demonstrations near the Parliament Building, depicting the anti-nuclear demonstration as “too loud and disturbing.”

Another cabinet member, Yuko Obuchi, Trade and Industry Minister, State Minister for Nuclear Damage

Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp., has declared to restart nuclear plants.

The Abe administration revised the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in June for promotion of accepting workforce from abroad to vitalize Japanese economy. Coupled with this, control over foreign residents in Japan has been strengthened as a part of Abe’s “Growth Strategy”. A plan is under way which intends to mobilize foreign workforce to the construction sites of the Tokyo Olympic Games scheduled in 2020*** and also to decontamination work in Fukushima. Now it is discussed to introduce a large number of foreign workers especially from Asian countries for this work by means of the Technical Intern Training Program for Foreigners**, which is harshly criticized as a forced labor system. On the occasion of the Olympic Games in Nagano in 1998, foreign workers mainly from Iran, who had been put into the

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construction work of the stadium, were forcibly deported once its construction was over. We are afraid that the similar thing would be repeated by Abe.

In Japan, currently 5,000 foreigners are applying for asylum. They are mostly from Turkey (including Kurdish people), Myanmar and African countries. They are seeking freedom in Japan. But their expectation to be entitled as refugees is scarcely met. Only seven people of the asylum applicants were granted refugee status last year. The other applicants are, however, prohibited to work and need to get permission from the immigration authority for the visit on friends in detention houses outside the designated residence area. Almost all applications for travel were rejected in recent months.

Against these harsh circumstances, in which not only the rights of refugees but also the fundamental rights of foreign residents were brutally denied and neglected,

they are striving to live in Japan with all of their power.

The Abe administration is promoting total outsourcing and attempting to replace workers in regular employment with irregular employment, thus demolishing organic unity of work place. His policy focuses on destroying workers’ unity, throwing 99% into poverty and mobilizing them into war.

Time has come to create militant labor movement in every work place with national railway struggle as its pivotal position. We are firmly determined to organize a huge mobilization to the November 2 National Workers’ Rally with a strong solidarity with foreign workers fighting courageously in Japan.

Capitalist attack of deregulation, outsourcing and casualization are in catastrophic bankruptcy. Let’s crush neoliberalism in its desperate drive toward war by the united power of international solidarity.

* Takaichi and Inada took photos with neo-Nazi Kazunari Yamada, the leader of the National Socialist Japanese Workers Party, and Yamatani and Prime Minister Abe himself have close relationship with Zaitokukai, the most notorious xenophobic organization that marches neighborhoods where many ethnic Koreans live chanting “kill, kill Koreans!” with apparent police protection from counter demonstrators.

For Zaitokukai, see: http://www.dw.de/japan-conservatives-hate-speech-goes-too-far/a-16938717
** The Technical Intern Training Program for Foreigners has been repeatedly criticized on domestic and international

papers: see: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2010/12/07/issues/abuse-rife-withi... *** Tokyo Olympic Games, see Doro-Chiba Quake Report issue 59

You can find the archive of Doro-Chiba Quake Report here: http://dorochibanewsletter.wordpress.com/

Nov.2 National Workers Rally

Reinstate Fired 1,047 National Railway Workers!
Stop Outsourcing of Railway Jobs!
Stop Abe’s “Collective Self-Defense”—Constitutional Revision and War!

In Solidarity with People in Fukushima, Abolish All Nuclear Power Plants Now!

Sponsored by:

Solidarity Union of Japan Construction and Transport Workers Kansai Area Branch (Kan-nama) Metal and Machinery Workers’ Union in Osaka (Minato-Godo)
National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba (Doro-Chiba)
Nation-wide Campaign of National Railway Struggle

Speakers include:

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Seoul Regional Counsel United Teachers Los Angeles
Fukushima Delegation

Time: Sunday, November 2, 2014, noon

Venue: Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall, Hibiya Koen Web site: http://www.geocities.jp/nov_rally/