A student-led movement is campaigning to raise Japan’s minimum wage and improve the lives of low-paid workers, many of whom struggle to meet their basic needs despite toiling long hours.
A student-led movement is campaigning to raise Japan’s minimum wage and improve the lives of low-paid workers, many of whom struggle to meet their basic needs despite toiling long hours.
Some 1,500 people took to the streets in mid-April in Tokyo’s Shinjuku area, one of Japan’s business and commercial centers, to call for a uniform 1,500 yen per hour minimum wage across the country.
“Reduce inequality, ” “Raise wages for people working in the nursing industry” and “Don’t vote for politicians who are indifferent to poverty, ” chanted the protestors, led by members of an anti-poverty movement called Aequitas.
Rie Fujikawa, a 25-year-old member of the group, consisting of those mainly in their 20s, said, “We want to eat something other than bean sprouts and poultry.
