Japan Pensioners' Union　　E-mail:aae41550@pop21.odn.ne.jp

The concluding observations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended to the Japanese government that it should take measures to secure income of the older persons who lose pension benefits due to drawing up of the age of eligibility for the public pension system, and that it should incorporate a minimum pension, which would improve women's pension benefits. These recommendations accurately point out the serious issues relating to the public pension system in Japan, and we strongly agree to those recommendations. Japanese government is going to reform public pension systems, revising the pension laws in the coming session of the Diet starting in January 2004. The major points of the reform are as follows. We are campaigning against the reform. 1. The premiums of the employees' pension are going to be raised up till 18.35% of the wage, splitting half and half between employers and workers, while currently 13.58% is the premium rate. 2. The benefits is going to be automatically adjusted to the decrease of work force, cutting down the benefits approximately unto 50% of the worker's average wage (the amount of pension benefit being workers' and their wives' benefits added), while currently the approximate level of pension benefit is 59% of the worker's average wage. 3. The government is going to levy more taxes on pension benefits, decreasing the amount paid as pension as a result. We, Japan Pensioners' Union, are against these reforms because they will put heavier burden for workers as well as older persons. We advocate to reform the pension systems not for the worse but for the better for people because of the following reasons. 1. In Japan the situation of employment is getting worse and worse. As the government encourages big businesses to dismiss workers as restructuring, more and more workers are losing their jobs. The raise of this kind of unemployment rate is putting a bad effect on the financial situations of pension schemes. 2. Another serious problem is that the national pension scheme is getting "hollow" inside year after year. In Japan, there are more that 600,000 older persons over 65 who get no pension benefits at all. Among 21 million people who are supposed to pay premiums of the national pension scheme, around 9 million people (amounting to 40%) are actually not paying premiums, either because they are exempted due to low income, or because they simply fail to pay. When these people get old, they are most likely to get no pension benefits or only get very low benefits. We advocate there should be established universal national minimum pension funded by national treasury. 3. The issue of gender gap in pension benefits is also serious. Regarding employees' pension, the average benefits of women amount to 110,000 yen, while those of men amount to 190,000 yen. Adding to this gap, most women only get national pension benefits, which are most likely to be 30,000 yen or 40,000 yen. The gap is mainly due to the gender discrimination in employment in general. Women's benefits are hardly enough to support their independent existence in old age. We call on the government to reduce the actual gap in pension benefits as much as possible. The budget is tight, the government says. But the government has money. We maintain that the change of social security systems for the worse is closely connected to the governments' policies to favor big businesses and its efforts to make Japan warlike. So, we have to make campaigns against the government's sending Self-Defense Forces to Iraq as well as campaigns against the pension reform for the worse.