Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 January 26 - February 1 [LABOR]

JMIU members discuss activities seeking decent wages

Young members of the All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers’ Union (JMIU) on January 30 held a meeting in Tokyo aimed at achieving a wage hike in this year’s Spring Labor Offensive.

About 50 union members across the country exchanged their experiences to achieve higher wages so that they can become economically independent.

A 26 year-old man from Ibaraki Prefecture said that although he lives with his parents, he still cannot make ends meet as he has to pay back his student loans. A 36 year-old man living in Tokyo with a monthly income of 190,000 yen, though working for 17 years, said at the meeting that he wants a monthly pay increase of 10,000 yen, which, if successfully achieved, will be the fifth consecutive annual increase in pay.

Takazawa Shingo, general secretary of a JMIU branch at the Ultrasonic Engineering, said that their annual income at the firm decreased by as much as 1.2 million yen after Lehman Brothers’ collapse and that they are determined to increase their efforts to gain a sufficient pay raise.