2007 Spring Struggle launched

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

2007 Spring Struggle launched

The People's Spring Struggle Joint Committee that includes the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) has launched its 2007 Spring Struggle, calling for blocking the adverse revision of labor laws and achieving a major wage increase.

On January 18, the committee held a meeting in Tokyo to adopt a spring struggle action policy.

Referring to the fact that the government has had to give up submitting to the upcoming ordinary Diet session a bill to introduce a white-collar exemption system due to strong criticism from workers and the general public, Ban'nai Mitsuo, the committee chair and the Zenroren president, in his address stressed that they need to be confident of their policy and called for further struggles to force the government to completely abandon the plan to introduce the system.

Concerning the prospects of the 2007 Spring Struggle, Ban'nai stated, "The public criticism of the outrageous high-handedness of the government and the business circles has been growing more than ever, and we have to take advantage of this chance to fight back." He went on to say, "Let us eradicate the causes for the adverse revision of labor laws through this spring struggle as well as the nationwide simultaneous local elections in April and the House of Councilors election in July."

The action policy, which Secretary General Odagawa Yoshikazu (Zenroren secretary general) proposed, calls for a struggle demanding "a wage increase for every worker of at least 10,000 yen a month or 100 yen an hour," attaching importance to the alleviation of the growing poverty rate and social gaps.

Odagawa also stressed the need to further increase the struggles in opposition to an adverse revision of social services and an increase in burdens on the public as well as the struggle in opposition to the national referendum bill that will open the path for an adverse revision of the Constitution.

Some 1,200 members of the joint committee on the same day petitioned the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, urging the management and the government to take effective measures to solve the problem of increasing poverty and social gaps and to abandon the plan for an adverse revision of labor laws.

In front of the ministry, Ito Sumie, a part-time worker living in Shiogama City in Miyagi Prefecture, held a placard reading, "I need an hourly wage of at least 1,000 yen." She said, "I've been paid 780 yen an hour without a pay raise for almost ten years. We need an increase in the minimum wage."
- Akahata, January 19, 2007