Around 150 members of a Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. workers union took part in a sit-in and rally Friday morning in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward protesting planned restructuring moves by the company.
The plan, unveiled earlier this year, includes transferring employees over the age of 51 to subsidiaries and wage cuts of up to 30 percent.
The 1,160-member Telecommunication Workers Union under the National Confederation of Trade Unions is opposing the moves, which would affect 110,000 of NTT's current workforce of 210,000.
Takashi Iwasaki, head of the TCWU, urged the company to withdraw the initiative, saying during the rally: "The transferring of the employees is virtually a kind of retirement system at age 50. It is the implementation of a reform plan like those suggested by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that would force Japanese people to bear the pain for reforms."
However, the All NTT Workers Union, a confederation of the labor unions of NTT and its group companies with about 220,000 members under the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, approved Thursday the radical NTT restructuring plan to slash personnel costs through wage cuts or transfers to lower-paying subsidiaries.
The union approved the plan, but tagged the agreement with stiff conditions that could lead to tough bargaining with management. The union is seeking full compensation from NTT for any wage cuts unionized NTT employees may suffer after being transferred to NTT subsidiaries.
The TCWU submitted the letter urging NTT to withdraw its plan in the afternoon and was to hold today a symposium in Tokyo opposing the company's rationalization plan, union members said.