Asahi :: Tuesday, June 30, 2009

• Nishikawa returned as Japan Post head (6/30)
  The brouhaha over the president of Japan Post Holdings Co. that led to the resignation of a Cabinet minister ended in typical conservative Japanese business fashion Monday when the re-appointment of Yoshifumi Nishikawa was approved at a shareholders' meeting.
  
  Prime Minister Taro Aso's decision to endorse Nishikawa despite a series of scandals, including an aborted attempt to sell the Kampo no Yado inn network, caused considerable fallout for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
  
  Earlier in the month, Kunio Hatoyama resigned as minister of internal affairs and communications in protest over the endorsement.
  
  The re-appointment of eight other directors was also approved at the Monday morning shareholders' meeting.
  
  An ensuing board of directors meeting sanctioned the re-appointment of Nishikawa as president and Shokichi Takagi as deputy president.
  
  Tsutomu Sato, Hatoyama's successor, approved Nishikawa's re-appointment later in the day.
  
  Although Nishikawa's term runs for one year, his future is anything but secure. The main opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) has pledged to pursue his resignation if it wins control of government in the Lower House election that must be called by September.
  
  The deputy director-general of the Finance Ministry's Financial Bureau, Akio Nakamura, attended the shareholders' meeting for the central government, which is the sole shareholder of Japan Post.
  
  The government approved the group's financial statements for the fiscal year that ended in March, but Nakamura warned: "To regain public trust, we hope you conduct talks with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and act accordingly."
  
  In a plan to improve operations submitted to the communications ministry last Wednesday, the group suggested appointing an outsider as chairman to oversee Nishikawa. The proposal was not discussed Monday.
  
  Japan Post plans to seek the approval of shareholders for the new chairman within three months.
  
  Nishikawa and other executives have offered to take pay cuts as a gesture of atonement for the failed plan to sell the Kampo no Yado network.(IHT/Asahi: June 30,2009)
  


• Tent village organizers close up shop (6/30)
  Having shamed the government into doing more for jobless and homeless people, the organizing committee of a tent village set up just across the street from the welfare ministry late last year disbands today.
  
  The move comes despite increasing joblessness.
  
  There is also growing concern over a much-feared "June crisis" as hundreds of people who sought help at the temp workers' village are still struggling to find work even as their low-rent public housing contracts and unemployment allowances are expiring.
  
  Toshikoshi Haken Mura (dispatch workers' year-end and New Year village) opened in Tokyo's Hibiya Park in late December to provide meals and shelter to jobless and homeless people during the New Year holidays.
  
  As the recession hit last fall, tens of thousands of nonregular workers lost their jobs, many having their contracts cut midway. Those who lived in company dormitories lost housing, too.
  
  The publicity over hundreds of homeless people inundating the temporary village prodded the government into action.
  
  "Haken Mura revealed the deterioration in Japan's labor market and the frailty of its safety net," said village "mayor" Makoto Yuasa at a symposium in Tokyo Sunday. "We are pulling down our signboard, but we will continue to work together."
  
  The organizing committee decided to dissolve, and its members to return to their respective support groups, because most former "villagers" have at least found places to live.
  
  But the symposium heard people express concerns and fears about the worsening job market.
  
  "No matter how many people we help, more come to consult us," said a member of the group Anti-Poverty-Network-Hiroshima, which advises jobless people.
  
  One man who lives in a shelter that he found with the help of the network said he was "filled with anxiety."
  
  "My unemployment benefits will last only 22 more days," the man said. "I have no relatives and no one to serve as a guarantor to rent an apartment."
  
  While the government said the economy had reached bottom, that has not been felt in the job market.
  
  Between October and this June, 216,000 nonregular workers were dismissed or had their contracts terminated. Of them, 135,000, or more than 60 percent, were dispatch workers.
  
  The peaks of dismissals came in December and again in March, when the fiscal year ended.
  
  The ratio of job offers to job seekers in April was a record low 0.46, meaning there is one job or fewer for every two job seekers.
  
  A man aged 29 who lost his dispatch work at a TV assembly plant in Mie Prefecture last December sought help from Haken Mura. He now lives on welfare. He has applied for 20 jobs, to no avail.
  
  He thought of taking job training in computer skills, but a welfare worker would not allow that, saying he must focus on his job hunt and get off welfare.
  
  About 600 people stayed at the village, but the organizing committee found in a survey that only 13 of the 108 who responded had since found jobs. Only five had found full-time positions.
  
  The survey also underscored their mental tensions and physical problems.
  
  "I feel uneasy every day and can't sleep," wrote one.
  
  "I know I have to do something, but my body and mind won't respond," said another.(IHT/Asahi: June 30,2009)