“Strike.”
Dear reader, what do you think when you hear this word? What impression do you get? Do you see the blood, sweat and tears? Do you see an angry, vicious mob disturbing our civil society? I bet a majority of Japanese people under the age of 40 have neither a positive nor negative impression of strikes. They have no impression at all and no idea about what a strike is because strikes have become rarer in modern Japanese society. This, however, hasn’t always been the case.
Takuboku Ishikawa died in 1910 at the tender age of 26. But before he left this world, he penned the following famous tanka:
働けど
働けどなお
我が暮らし
楽にならざり
じつと手をみるHatarakedo
Hatarakedonao
waga kurashi
raku ni narazari
jitto te wo miruStaring at my hands
I toil and toil
yet my life gets no easier
Bewildered by his predicament, Takuboku found himself staring at the hands that connected him both physically and spiritually to his work.
働けど
働けどなお
我が暮らし
楽にならざり
じつと手をみる
1910（明治43）年に26歳で夭逝した歌人の石川啄木による、あまりにも有名な短歌である。「どれだけたくさん働いても、一向に暮らしは楽にならないのはなぜだろう？ 途方に暮れて、思わずじっと自分の手を見つめてしまう・・・」という意味である。
啄木は若き才能あふれる文学者であったが、生前はその才能が世間になかなか認められず、代用教員や校正など、生活のために様々な職に就いていた（ちなみに、彼は周囲の人に借金をしまくっており、しかもその返済をしなかったという）。ただし、啄木は肉体労働には就いていなかったので、「じつと」見つめていた手は、きっと赤剥けもささくれもなく、細く白かったのだろうと推測できる。
Labor law covers a great deal of territory, from wages, work hours, transfers and performance evaluation to dismissals, selling of business rights and industrial accidents. One subject often overlooked is break time or kyūkei. My labor law encyclopedia devotes far fewer pages to this subject than just about any other topic. It is, after all, labor law, not “rest law.”
I was hoping to start off the Year of the Sheep in a subdued, “sheepish” fashion, but bad news just keeps on coming. The ruling coalition is working hard to push through a bill to abolish overtime pay for high-income workers and another to deregulate temp-agency employment (haken). These bills will hurt the conditions of all workers in Japan, including foreigners.
Speaking of foreign workers, I’d like to focus this month on how labor laws in Japan handle the issue of nationality. But first, a detour:
Japanese society over the past couple of years has taken a dangerous turn toward extreme nationalism. My husband noted, “Since 2014, both NHK and the private broadcasters have changed how they refer to Japan, from using the word Nihon to Nippon.” The latter was used during World War II and is associated with jingoistic militarism. It also has a harsher consonant sound than “Nihon.”
～原告団長内田妙子さんインタビュー～
2010年大晦日。世間の多くの人びとは、慌ただしく新年を迎える準備をしながら、ワクワクと心躍らせていたことだろう。そんななか、日本屈指の航空会社、鶴のトレードマークで有名なJAL（日本航空）で働く165名の労働者らは、大晦日に会社からクビを切られた。パイロット81名と客室乗務員84名。長年、誇りと情熱をもって空の安全を守るために仕事に従事してきた彼らは、なぜ、大晦日に仕事を奪われなければならなかったのだろうか。
BY HIFUMI OKUNUKI
NOV 26, 2014
The prevalence of the employment custom of saiyō naitei (tentative job offers) may well be peculiar to Japan. As I touched upon in my March 27, 2012, column, university juniors and seniors skip class to attend work seminars, company orientations, internships and, finally, a series of tests and interviews with prospective employers.
Universities wholeheartedly approve of this shūkatsu job-hunting mania and are therefore quite lenient about attendance, assignments and other mere scholastic responsibilities. If things go well, seniors find themselves the lucky recipients of a saiyō naitei — an early promise of employment to begin the first April after graduation.
