田中哲朗さんの記事（英文）

以下は、「東京新聞」（1/1）に掲載された田中哲朗さんの記事の英語翻訳です。英文はレイバーネット米国のスティーブ・ゼルツアー氏によります。日本語文はこちらへ。

1/1/06 Tokyo Shinbun by Masatomo asai

Fighting Singer Tetsuro Tanaka (57)

It has been long since it was said that, “The Japanese stopped getting angry.” How many people are getting angry in reaction to the industrial scandals and companies’ unjust restructuring lay-offs, or the national and the local tax increases? However, if you listen closely, you can hear trembling and angry voices, which may be lonely, isolated or concealed for a long time underneath the surface. Some of those voices have such anger beyond sorrow feeling. The first of the 2006 unique series will be on “Anger”.

Eight o’clock in the morning, a middle-aged man with a guitar appeared in front of the gate of the Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. Hachioji office of Hachioji city in Tokyo.

The wave of workers flow into the gate avoiding eye contact Playing a guitar with my fingers in the work gloves with tips cut open, I shout Please live, live like a human! Don’t turn your head away from what you see (Song from “The sunlight”)

No one stops to listen, but Tesuro Tanaka with a guitar has continued to appeal to the Oki workers for the last 24 years. He was laid off from Oki Electric on June 29, 1981. Requesting his job back, he started the protest the next day. This was the birth of the “singing fighter.” The incident that changed Tanaka’s destiny was the mass layoff of 1350 workers at the Hachioji office in 1978. The trade union had gradually been loosing power before the company’s re-structuring plan and the workers who supported the laid off members were becoming increasingly isolated. Tanaka was in the midst of this whirlpool.

The company started doing the morning exercise the next year. The supervisors encouraged workers saying that by participating in the morning exercise, they could show their loyalty to the company. It was clear that this action was like a “fumie” (stepping on a picture - in Tokugawa era, in order to stop spreading Christianity, loads made people to step on a picture of St. Mary to show that they were not Christians) Among 200 workers on the floor, Tanaka was the only employee who didn’t participate. “Honestly, by sitting alone, my heart was pounding at the beginning.” But, “by the act of carrying out my feeling through, I gained my confidence.”

Around that time, he was removed from his job as an engineer, and transferred to a job to assist others. Childish harassments started in many work places.

“I was the leader of mandolin club We were singing together happily But one by one, the workers would stop coming They said that they were told not to go by their section chief (Song from “Harassment”) (“I” was Mr. Tanaka)

At the beginning of the struggle, the majority of approximately 2,000 employees received his flyers, however, within a half year, the number was reduced to single digit. “I received a shock to see that many people changed their opinion in such a short period of time and I worried about this same thing happening in our society as a whole. This was the starting point of my activity.”

In June 1980, he ran as a candidate for union office, and he criticized the attitude of the company. “If I ran as a candidate for the union official in the election, I knew that the company’s attack toward me would become harder, but I thought I would regret it if I didn’t do it.”

In June 1981, he was transferred to the sales department, which he was not familiar with at all. That was like a death notice to him. He refused the transfer, and he was fired as he had expected to be.

He had to have a good plan of back up since he had a wife and two children aged 2 and 4 years old. He had also bought a condominium a couple years prior with a large loan. “I thought I couldn’t talk about social justice if I couldn’t even protect my own family.” He decided to sell the condominium instead of using up the saving of 400,000 yen. He also thought of becoming a truck driver.

The guitar class he opened 5 months after being fired started getting students. His wife Kaoru (51) who was a licensed kindergarten teacher also had a regular income. One day, Kaoru was asked by their son, “what is my father’s job?” She took her son to the father who was standing in front of the company and said, “He is fighting against the monstrous beast at this company.” Kaoru said, “I never thought the choice he made was a mistake”, “I wanted him to fight with all his youthful vigor, even if it meant him getting fired.”

For 24 years, except in the case when it was physically impossible because of touring outside of the district, he never missed the protest action in front of the gate at 8:00 AM. On weekends and holidays, he also comes at various time, praying for “peace in the world”. He also sings songs telling the past company president, who passed away after firing him, to tell the present management to stop the discrimination and harassment on the workers.

At the “special sit-in on the 20th year after the firing” in June 2001, Shizuka Kamei, a member of the House of Representatives, and also the chair of State Affairs Investigation of the Liberal Democratic Party at that time, also participated the sit-in.

There hasn’t been any harassment from the Oki Electric employees ever since he started playing guitar and appealing to them for solidarity for all workers.

“My protest actions are against the company’s unfair treatment, and not because I hate those employees. I believe they understood that. The anger toward the unfair will change the character of the suffering, and make people happier. Anger based on hate might have power for a short period, but it will eventually destroy himself. The anger and hate are different.”

The labor movement reporter Satoshi Kamata said, “The time of the mass lay-off period, Mr. Tanaka wasn’t active yet. He became active after he started witnessing the company’s unjust policy, and started criticizing those. His style of using songs portraying the reality of white collar workers and this appeal for social justice has created a new culture within the labor movement.”

The lawsuit Tanaka filed against Oki Electric was lost in 1995. He also filed several cases against the company regarding forced removal at the stockholders meeting and others, but he hasn’t won any case yet. Why does he keep suing the company while renewing “the proud record of losing cases?”

“The present court system is taking the side of the power and employers. I would like to leave the record for the future that what I believe was denied over and over again. That record will be useful in the future to reform the judicial system to operate more fairly.

In 2003, 2 employees of Oki Electric were arrested for bribing the mayor of Yufuin, Oita prefecture regarding public funded work. Tanaka was able to get the 2000 pages of the investigative document of the case, and he came to understand the fact that major communication equipment manufacturers were illegally consulting each other prior to the bid. He filed a complaint to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department; however, it wasn’t accepted with the reason that “the stature of limitations has passed.” “The police have a very close relationship with companies, and at the same time, they are against the labor or civil rights movement. There is no reaction from the mass media even we sent material to them.”

His protest action in front of the gate is 30 minutes long every day. These days, it is cold early in a morning to the near freezing temperature. His cold fingers press against the disposable heating pads in his pocket.

Although Oki Electric denied it, Tanaka said that the company had tried to negotiate a settlement to him by offering money. However, Tanaka said he was determined from the beginning not to compromise with money.

“My task in this struggle is to make the company admit their wrong doing, and make them take all the workers back. I will continue to come back here in front of the gate as long as my body permits.”

Despite the loss of his cases against Oki, his will to fight continues.