2010 March 3 - 9 [
LABOR]
Workers in Spring Struggle hold day of action
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March 5, 2010
Union members of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) and the Joint Committee for the People’s Spring Struggle on March 4 held a day of action under the slogan, “Use corporate internal reserves to increase wages! Raise the minimum wage to 1,000 yen! Revise the Worker Dispatch Law!”
Early in the morning in front of Shinjuku Station, union members handed out leaflets saying that a revision of the Worker Dispatch Law should lead to employment security. Representatives of unions and a lawyer took the microphone to call on commuters to join in the movement calling for a drastic revision of the Worker Dispatch Law.
All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Union (JMIU) Chair Ikuma Shigemi said, “The revision of the law should help stabilize employment, improve worker’s living conditions, and create a better future for all.”
During the lunch hour, about 1,700 union members assembled in front of the Labor Ministry Building to hold a rally urging the government to work to eradicate poverty and social inequality and to expand domestic demand by ensuring job security.
At the rally, Zenroren President Daikoku Sakuji stated, “Although the government announced that the recession has bottomed out, we don’t believe it. Big corporations, however, are using their internal reserves to pay out dividends. We have to increase our efforts to get them to return a portion of their profits to us by increasing wages as well as the minimum wage, and force a government economic policy change that gives priority to expanding domestic demand.”
In front of the head office of Japan Post Holdings Co., Ltd., postal workers unions, including the Zenroren member union Postal Industry Workers’ Union (Yusanro), together held a rally demanding equal treatment and full-time positions for about 220,000 contingent workers at the Japan Post Group.
There were also various actions taking place in the afternoon. Union members petitioned lawmakers of all political parties to revise the Worker Dispatch Law and members of a taxi drivers’ union and a truck drivers’ union jointly marched in demonstration in their vehicles through the government office district in Kasumigaseki.
- Akahata, March 5, 2010
