JAPANESE UNIONS STAGE HALF-DAY STRIKE .
Symptoms of a rise in the class struggle have appeared in Japan °
A half-day strike called_by the National Couneil of Government Enterprise Workers Unions [Korokyo] April 23 seriously cut into the country's telecommunication and postal services. Cigarette production, bank note printing and local train services were also affected.
The strike would have been still more effective if the National Railway Workers Union [Kokuro], the largest of the nine Korokyo unions, had not suddenly withdrawn its strike order on April 22, leaving the Japan Telecommunications Workers Union [Zendentsu] to spearhead the. action,
As it was, about seventy per cent of telegraph services were paralyzed and all nondial telephone services went dead.
A spokesman for the Japan Postal Workers Union LZentei] estimated that more than 3,000,000 letters and parcels were held up by the half-day walkout. It will take probably three days to catch Ups 22 2 a bo a a ne
The National Railway Motive Power Union [Doro] staged a threehour strike, delaying four passenger and two freight trains in six rural areas,
Korokyo is demanding a pay rise of about $20 a month, retro-= active to last November. Management is offering around $2. The dispute is now before the Public Corporations and Government Enterprise Labor Relations Commission [Koroi].
One of the significant aspects of the action was that under existing law it is illegal for Korokyo to go on strike.
Thus Korokyo is also demanding swift ratification of the International Labor Organization Convention 87 on freedom of asso= ciation. This would give them the right to strike.
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