著者

伍賀 一道

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.3, pp.5-18, 2007-10-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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The labour supply project or labour-only contracting was prevalent in the Japanese labour market before World War II. It often involved intermediate exploitation and forced labour. The Employment Security Law enacted in 1947 strictly prohibited the labour supply project. It also prohibited "indirect employment relationships" or "triangular employment relationships". The government considered them as a kind of the labour supply project. However, the Worker Dispatching Law enacted in 1985 permitted "indirect" or "triangular employment relationships". The government made it lawful for a company to direct and order a worker without employing him/her, and for a dispatching agency to employ a worker but let others direct and order him/her. The client company may in fact dismiss the dispatched worker by terminating or revoking the contract with the dispatching agency. The client company does not have any responsibilities as an employer to the dismissed dispatched worker. The "indirect employment relationships" make it easy for the client company to adjust its work force. In this way it became possible for a client company to avoid most employer responsibilities. In other words, the Law allowed that the dispatching agency commercialized surrogate services of employer responsibilities and the client company bought the services from the agency. The Worker Dispatching Law originally limited the types of work for which a worker could be dispatched and the period for which a client company could utilize a dispatched worker. Since the latter half of the 1990s, the Law was revised several times as a part of the labour market deregulation agenda. It liberalized, in principle, the designated work to which the worker could be dispatched, except for construction, security service and longshoring. The revision also extended upper limit of the period that the client company could use a dispatched worker in the same workplace. Nowadays, "indirect" or "triangular employment relationships" prevailed in most industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, information and communications, transport, wholesale and retail trade, finance and insurance, eating and drinking, public sector and so on. Not only dispatching agencies but also labour-only subcontractors assign many workers to the factories of big firms, legally or illegally. Quite a lot of temporary dispatched workers work for the clients for a short-time contract, including one-day contract. The big dispatching agencies or labour-only subcontractors built the information networks for job applicants and clients. Job applicants can book in them by mobile phone, wherever they are. It means the agencies or subcontractors succeeded in collecting the data of "the industrial reserve armies". Today, the number of the employees in "indirect employment relationships" is estimated at more than 3 millions. Client companies require the dispatching agencies or labour-only subcontractors to reduce a fee for dispatching workers. The agencies simply supply the clients with the low-paid workers who are not guaranteed social security or their minimum rights stipulated by the Labour Standards Law. Thus it seems the labour supply project is actually restored. However, it doesn't mean reversion to the feudalistic employment relations, but the expanded commercialization of surrogate services of employer responsibilities. Under tough competition for lower cost, some agencies or subcontractors tend to avoid carrying out the surrogate services. In some cases nobody exercises the employer responsibilities. The "indirect employment relationships" have absorbed the unemployed population, thereby, on the surface, reduced the unemployment rate. But they actually brought about a lot of irregular or precarious employment.

著者

伍賀 一道

出版者

労務理論学会

雑誌

労務理論学会誌 (ISSN:24331880)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.19, pp.27, 2009 (Released:2018-05-04)

著者

伍賀 一道

出版者

基礎経済科学研究所

雑誌

経済科学通信 (ISSN:0385065X)

巻号頁・発行日

no.119, pp.66-72, 2009-04