"Sensei, Japan is such a safe country because there are no strikes. Right?" A student at the university where I teach blindsided me with this remark the other day.
The vast majority of Japanese under 30 have never even witnessed industrial action and imagine a strike as something equivalent to a riot. As a teacher of labor law, students' fresh, innocent faces when talk turns to labor disputes leaves me scratching my head. I thought long and hard about what to say to the student who made the above quip.
Striking is the main dispute tool for labor unions to realize worker demands. Article 28 of Japan's Constitution guarantees the right to "workers' collective action." This means strikes. Although dispute action can cause enormous damage to employers and third parties, the Constitution protects such action as a fundamental human right.