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Japan's temporary workers at frontline of downturn

AfP, Tokyo
Satoru Dodo says that when his boss gave him just days to pack up and leave his factory job, he felt like one of the cars he had helped assemble — a commodity easily dispensed with when no longer useful.
Since being fired from his temporary job at Nissan Diesel Motor Co. three months ago, and becoming one of the many victims of the global downturn, the 24-year-old has had little energy for thinking about the future.
What future? My thoughts are filled with how to survive each day. I don’t have any time to think about a future,” he told AFP at a rally this week where laid-off workers demanded companies provide them with social benefits.
Unlike regular employees, temporary staff like Satoru Dodo work not for the company but an employment agency. As a result, companies owe them little, and workers quickly find themselves in fragile legal positions.
As exports collapse in Japan, the birthplace of the "just-in-time" production concept, companies are cutting jobs to slash costs amid the worst global downturn in decades -- and temporaryjobs are the first to go.
Among Japan's 1.5 million temporary workers, 157,806 are expected to become unemployed in the October-March period, the labour ministry said Friday. The number could rise sharply amid the downturn,
say temporary staff agencies.
More than one third of Japan's workforce is now made up of workers in unstable conditions that include temporary, contract and part-time jobs, many taken by women.
"Temporary workers are treated like objects," said Makoto Kawazoe, who represents a labour group for young workers in Tokyo.
"One simple telephone call from a manager to the temporary work agency, and the employees are fired.
"When a contract ends, the agency normally finds the worker another job elsewhere in Japan," said Kawazoe. "But with the crisis, he or she has nowhere to go. The system's defects are exploding right in our faces."
In a society that not so long ago took jobs for life for granted, the new system, and its risks, have been deeply demoralising for many.
"I feel like I am the dregs of society," said 36-year-old Hiroshi Suzuki, who was fired by truck-maker Mitsubishi Fuso in November.
Yasuyo Ohashi, 44, a mother of three, said she was treated "like a nothing" when she was fired from a liquor producer more than a year ago.
"I want my honour back so that I can bring up my children with dignity," she said, adding that she has launched legal action against her former employer, whom she accused of inventing lies in
order to have her fired.
The temporary work system was fully implemented in 2004, during a period of liberal reform spearheaded by popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.
As a result, the number of temporary workers has surged, particularly in the auto and electronic industries, fuelled by an influx of foreigners, including Peruvians and Brazilians of Japanese descent.
Japanese companies were able to refine their strategy to control the ebb and flow of workers in their factories - welcoming hundreds of extra hands one day, then showing them the door when they were no longer needed.
Temporary staff depend on agencies for shelter and pay, typically around 150,000 yen (1,546 dollars) a month. With no retirement plans and often meagre savings, many workers have found themselves on the streets.
Late last year, hundreds of unemployed temporary workers gathered in a Tokyo park where a tent village was set up to provide warm food and shelter.
The growing number of temporary workers has not translated into a stronger voice -- they have little or no say at their workplaces.
"Companies do not consider them as their own," said Tokyo-based social scientist David-Antoine Malinas. "And so when they complain, they are usually told to go complain to their agencies."