Japan Diet Enacts Work Style Reform, TPP-Related Legislation

June 29, 2018

Tokyo- The Diet, Japan's parliament, enacted on Friday a work style reform bill that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe regards as the most important legislation in its ongoing session.

It also passed into law the same day a bill needed to implement a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral free trade pact.

The bills were approved by a majority vote at a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, with support mainly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito. They cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, in late May.

The government and the ruling camp plan to speed up work on remaining key bills, including one to introduce integrated resorts featuring casinos in Japan and another to increase the number of Upper House seats by six from the current 242, with the aim of having them enacted before the regular Diet session ends on July 22.

As opposition parties remain firmly opposed to some of the bills, confrontation between the two sides is expected to continue until the very end of the session.

With some opposition parties beginning to reveal differing opinions from those of other parties over the handling of parliamentary affairs, however, it is uncertain whether they can remain united in facing off against the ruling camp.

The work style reform legislation is designed to introduce overtime restrictions and exclude highly skilled high-paid professionals from work hour regulations.

In addition, the legislation, which is a set of eight bills, including one to revise the labor standards law, calls for equal pay for equal work with the view of reducing the pay gap between regular and nonregular employees.

The legislation will be implemented in stages from April 2019.

"It's the biggest (work style) reform to be implemented in 70 years," Abe told reporters. "We'll continue to promote reforms from the perspectives of workers."

In compiling the legislation, the government removed a plan to expand the scope of workers covered by the discretionary work system, which was one of the major pillars of the legislation, in the face of criticism against data flaws found in a related labor ministry survey.

Major opposition parties sought the scrapping of the plan to exclude high-paid professionals from the work hour regulations.

"It is the worst labor legislation revision in postwar history and will promote death by overwork," Michihiro Ishibashi of the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan told the Upper House plenary meeting.

The TPP-related legislation calls for support measures for domestic farmers expected to face tougher competition with foreign products after tariff cuts under the revised trade pact.

The pact, officially called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, was signed by Japan and 10 other countries in March after the United States withdrew from the original deal last year.

A bill to ratify the CPTPP was approved by the Japanese parliament earlier this month. The related legislation's enactment is a prerequisite for concluding the pact. Jiji Press