Workers at the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Wednesday threatened to strike unless their labor demands were met, possibly affecting operations of a U.S. aircraft carrier, a Japanese labor official said.
The largest Japanese labor union at Yokosuka naval base will stage a strike involving some 600 workers if it fails to reach an agreement with the Defense Facilities Administration Agency over retirement conditions, according to the group's general secretary, Satohiro Konya.
If the strike goes ahead, it would "inevitably" affect the operations of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, Konya said.
Some 4,300 of the 4,700 Japanese employees at the base are part of the All Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union, and many of them are engineers, according to Konya.
The union will decide whether to go ahead with the strike on Friday after negotiations with the agency, which oversees employment at U.S. bases in Japan, Konya said.
The union is demanding that the agency raise the employee retirement age in line with recent changes to Japanese law.