On Monday 4th December 2023, members of Tozen’s Gaba local took to the streets to protest and fight for their wellbeing.
The video below includes speeches from organiser Louis Carlet, Gaba local President Musashi Sakazaki, and Gaba local General Secretary Mitch Brown.
In the article ‘I feel disposable’: Thousands of scientists’ jobs at risk in Japan, about universities terminating workers on fixed-term contracts, Tozen organiser Louis Carlet was interviewed and gave an explanation on how universities have responded to the 5/10-year rule.
Read the full article here
On March 30, 2022, NHK Web News ran a story on how women driven to financial hardship due to the corona pandemic are increasingly turning to sex work. (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20220330/k10013558231000.html)
The report notes that sex workers’ “growing presence in busy urban neighborhoods has spurred police to take enforcement action but also to assign case officers to provide support and to accompany the arrested women to life consultant centers run by local governments.” The cops have begun to provide support for the women’s futures from a social welfare perspective, rather than just cracking down.
Louis Carlet, Tony Dolan, and Orren Frankham present a Tozen Daigaku on how to safely organise your coworkers, what to be careful of, how to build up a union, and their own experiences in building unions.
Japanese Labour Union Act
Japanese Labour Relations Adjustment Act
Japanese Labour Standards Act
On Friday 30th July 2021, members of Tozen held a candle-lit online protest calling for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics.
As a labour union we fight for workers’ rights, and worker safety. And the Tokyo Olympics has had numerous counts of worker deaths and injuries, and workers have reported a “culture of fear” that discouraged them from making complaints about working conditions.
Another major reason that we do not support the Olympics is that the world is currently in the midst of a global pandemic. Corona cases in Japan have been constantly rising and dropping, and with no large-scale vaccination in sight, going ahead with the olympics would be an unnecessary risk to all.
Other reasons that we oppose the Tokyo Olympics are:
(Reuters) – Japan is considering expanding a controversial program that now offers workers from China and elsewhere permits to work for up to three years, as the world’s fastest-aging nation scrambles to plug gaps in a rapidly shrinking workforce.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday submitted a proposal to let workers to stay for up to five years, relax hiring rules for employers and boost the number of jobs open to them.
