Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 6 - 12 [LABOR]

Wage hike offensive entering make-or-break stage

A concerted action of about 3,000 union workers calling for an across-the-board increase in basic pay and job security took place on March 5 in and around Tokyo’s administrative district, Kasumigaseki.

With answers from management to the labor’s wage hike demand approaching in mid-March, the annual labor offensive is entering a make-or-break stage.

Demonstrators marched toward the building of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) which continues to ignore the demands of workers.

The majority of the marchers also participated in a rally where Daikoku Sakuji, the president of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), called for the utilization of just a portion of 267-trillion yen in corporate internal reserves for both higher wages and higher unit prices paid to subcontractors. Daikoku complained that rising share prices are not improving workers’ living conditions.

On behalf of the National Federation of Dockworkers’ Unions of Japan, Itoya Kin’ichiro expressed solidarity with workers in this year’s spring wage-hike struggle. He said, “Wages for dockworkers are not rising because of deregulation. Let us cut free from the management attempts to try to divide us into categories of regular and non-regular workers!”

A worker from the All Japan Automobile Transport Workers’ Unions said, “Let’s block the planned increase in the consumption tax rate as it will really hurt the taxi industry!”

A representative from a co-op labor union of the 3.11 affected city of Iwaki in Fukushima said, “We want our city’s minimum wage to increase so that we can contribute to Fukushima’s reconstruction.”

A worker from the National Federation of Prefectural and Municipal Workers’ Unions said, “Cuts in public workers’ wages are running counter to efforts to overcome the deflation.”

A medical worker who belongs to the Japan Federation of Medical Workers’ Unions said, “Along with a wage hike, the improvement of working conditions and night shift burdens are our immediate demands.”