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Mainichi Shimbun cover Tozen’s fight for 10% pay rise
Article written by 東海林智, and originally featured here. 「10％以上の賃上げを」非正規労働者ら、春闘に向け団体設立 非正規労働者らを多く組織する個人加盟が中心の労働組合や地域労組が4日、2024年春闘へ向けた共闘組織「非正規春闘実行委員会」を設立した。物価高による生活苦が社会に広がる中、一律10％以上の賃上げを方針に掲げた。実行委は「一人でも賃上げを求め声を上げることはできる。一緒に賃金を上げよう」と呼びかけた。
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Bread & Roses: Labor Commission Grants Rights to Uber Eats Union
SNA (Tokyo) — US President Joe Biden ensured that December 2, 2022, will go down as a dark day in the history of the US labor movement. He signed legislation that forces railway unions to accept a miserable contract, robbing them of their right to strike for better conditions. A week prior, the Tokyo Labor…
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Bread & Roses: Bosses Can’t Force Workers to Quit
SNA (Tokyo) — Kata-tataki, or taps on the shoulder, indicate a series of actions a boss takes to drive a worker to quit without outright firing them. It establishes that the subsequent contract termination is mutually agreed, as opposed to a unilateral and contestable firing. The legal jargon for such “shoulder tapping” is taishoku kansho. In this…
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Bread & Roses: Tragedy and Prison for a Pregnant Foreign Intern
In August 2018 at the age of 19, Le Thi Thuy Linh arrived in Japan to work as a jisshusei intern. Each day, she handled agricultural wastewater at a tangerine orchard in Kumamoto Prefecture. Japan’s rapidly ageing population has created a dearth of agricultural workers, forcing farmers to turn to young foreign interns like Linh…
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東ゼン大学 – 産休とマタハラ Tozen Daigaku: Maternity Leave and Harassment
弁護士加藤佳子東ゼン労組執行委員長奥貫妃文は産後産前休暇とマタハラパタハラを講義する。 Attorney Kato Keiko and Tozen President Hifumi Okunuki teach us about the law and legal cases around maternity leave, and maternity and paternity harassment.
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Bread & Roses: Remote Jobs Upend Work-Life Balance
SNA (Tokyo) — Remote work is no longer a remote concept. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen telework, work-from-home, and workations soar in the popular imagination, and indeed become a reality in many lives. The very meaning of work is undergoing a tectonic transformation before our eyes. So let’s look at…
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東ゼン一日行動ビデオ Tozen All Day Protest Videos
東ゼン一日行動(上) 神田にあるシェーン英会話本社前で抗議行動を始めした。 The first part of Tozen’s All Day Protest. Starting with the Shane Worker’s Union protesting at Shane English School Head Office in Kanda, Tokyo. 東ゼン一日行動(中) 神田にある神田外語大学院前で抗議行動を始めした。 The second part of Tozen’s All Day Protest. Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) Union protesting at Kanda University of International Studies in Kanda, Tokyo. 東ゼン一日行動(下) 銀座にあるインタラック本社前で抗議行動を始めした。…
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Bread & Roses: Pandemic Drives Women into “Nighttime Work”
On November 16, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced the disciplinary dismissal of a 28-year-old school nurse for moonlighting as a sex worker for more than a year. Tokyo officials interrogated her after receiving an anonymous tip about her after-hours work. The primary and middle school nurse said she wanted to save enough money to live…
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Bread & Roses: Are Actors “Laborers”?
SNA (Tokyo) — Suit-clad office workers, long-haul truck drivers, ramen shop food preparers, fake priests at faux churches, insurance solicitors, rice paddy farmers, maid cafe servers, security guards, nurses, train conductors, schoolteachers, nursery school caregivers, bank tellers, garbage collectors, plumbers, paralegals, social workers… How many megabytes would it take to list all jobs that occupy…
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置いてけぼりの夏の真ん中 ー2021盛夏、コロナとオリンピックの渦のなかでー Midsummer 2021 – Left to be sucked into the corona-Olympic vortex
奥貫妃文の詩。 A poem by Hifumi Okunuki. (English is below the Japanese.) いまは、いったいいつなんだろう。 ここは、いったいどこなんだろう。 東京都新宿区、奥神楽坂の我が家から歩いて3分。 中国人のジャンさんが営む中華料理レストランがあった。 私と夫は頻繁に通っては、裏メニュー「黒酢きゅうり」を頼んでいた。 2021年8月の現在、その店は、もうない。 夜遅くまで客足が絶えず、楽し気な声で満ちていた店は、真っ暗なまま。 がらんどうになった店の入口は、落ち葉の吹き溜まりになっている。 壁には「テナント募集」の張り紙。それもすっかり色褪せ、 今にもはがれそうにカサカサ、カサカサ、と音を立てている。 新しい賃借人が入るのは、いつのことになるだろうか。