Japan fishery workers strike

Some 200,000 boats were out of service July 15 as 400,000 fishery workers held a one-day strike in Japan to protest the high price of fuel. Thousands—some reports gave the figure as more than 10,000—marched around the fishery ministry in central Tokyo, their banners, placards and bodies clogging the street.

While the business press, like the Financial Times Information Service, downplayed the impact of the strike, television reports showed empty fish bins and fish-processing centers with no workers because they had no fish to process.

Fish is a staple of the Japanese diet.

Strikes and protests are rare in Japan, but fishery workers have been pushed to the wall.

Shigeru Honma came to protest in Tokyo from northern Japan. On July 1, according to the Washington Post, he delivered a letter to the prime minister that read: “Soaring fuel prices are killing Japan’s fishing industry. Give us money, or oil.”

Since there was no response from the prime minister’s office, he came back July 15 and told the Post, “We are very gentle, but it’s time to say something now.”