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2022 October 26 - November 1 [LABOR]

Part-time workers at sushi chain 'Sushiro' win better treatment

Young part-time workers at leading conveyer-belt sushi chain "Sushiro" have won certain results after demanding that the chain operating company improve part-timers' working conditions.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Youth Union restaurant chapter announced the achievement during its press conference held at the Labor Ministry office building on October 27.

According to the Youth Union, college students working part-time at Sushiro outlets in Tokyo and Saitama joined the union and submitted a request to the company in late August, appealing for better treatment. The company, in response, promised to: regard prep time such as hand-washing and thermometry as overtime hours; calculate hourly wages in minutes; and install more air-conditioners at its sushi restaurants. The union said that it will demand an hourly wage of 1,500 yen in the upcoming collective wage-bargaining talks.

A part-timer at a Sushiro outlet in Tokyo said, "Our hourly wage is 100 yen lower than that in other surrounding eating establishments. I want as many part-timers as possible to be unionized and together call for pay hikes."

Obayashi Tetsuya, secretary general of the Youth Union said, "Low-cost sushi restaurants are in fierce competition with each other, and it is always workers who end up shouldering even greater burdens. We are thinking of establishing a new union for workers working at conveyer-belt sushi chains so that they can come to seek help."