Prime Minister Shinzo Abe caused a stir when he called in a Jan. 22 policy speech for equal pay for comparable jobs, apparently to bring the earnings of regular and nonregular workers into line.
Opposition lawmakers did not like what they heard. They dismissed his words as ambiguous, detecting in them no serious intention to eradicate disparity in pay across the two categories of worker. They also pointed to the absence of specific proposals from Abe's administration in the form of Diet bills.
During a budget committee session at the Lower House on Friday, Akira Nagatsuma of the Democratic Party of Japan urged Abe to clarify what he means by "equal pay for equal work" and to pledge legislation to correct the wage gap between regular and nonregular workers.