Union presses MPs to cancel wartime legislation and labor law changes

Members of the Japan Metal and Information Industry Workers Union (JMIU) on April 17 held a demonstration and visited members of parliament demanding that the contingency legislation and labor law changes be scrapped.

They also staged protests at corporations which are shifting extra burdens onto the workers in the name of corporate "restructuring".

About 500 union members marched in a demonstration through the government office district to the Diet.

Addressing the rally, Ikuma Shigemi, on behalf of the organizers of the day's action stated that the labor law changes sought by the government will rob workers of the "right to speak". He said that the struggle against the revision of the Labor Standards Law should be developed hand in hand with all sections of the people.

Demonstrators also assembled in front of the U.S. embassy in Akasaka to demand that the U.S.-British forces withdraw from Iraq to give the United Nations the major role in rebuilding Iraq. (end)