The newspaper headlines danced with the words "Minimum wage increased by 50 yen, highest increase ever".
This shows that the Japanese media is no longer a bellwether of society.
A 50 yen increase is nothing but a drop in the bucket for working people.
The rate of increase is 5%, but the rise in prices, insurance premiums, etc. will blow that away.
Real wages have been falling for more than two years in a row and are still breaking records.
Raising the minimum wage by 50 yen will not turn it into a positive.
The minimum wage in Japan is decided by the Minimum Wage Council.
There, representatives of employers, workers and public interest groups meet.
I saw the scene on TV for a moment and everyone looked down with a gloomy face.
There must be a strong pressure from the employers' side, who say, "We can't raise the wages so easily",
I felt that the pressure was so great that they could not say anything.
The workers' representatives, who were originally weak and quiet, must have been cleverly chosen.
The employers' reason for not being able to raise wages boldly has always been.
"If we raise the minimum wage too much, there will be many small and medium-sized enterprises that will collapse"...
But nowadays, companies that can't afford to raise it by even 100 yen should go down the drain.
Do you know, folks?
A whopping two-thirds of Japanese companies are already in the red!
This means that two thirds of companies that should have left society are already in the red.
The reason why they still haven't gone bankrupt is because they have retained earnings and assets.
If they have assets such as land, they can borrow money from banks.
Moreover, they do not have to pay corporation tax and can even get tax refunds.
There is strong pressure to accommodate such loss-making companies, and this is allowed in Japan.
It is no wonder that Japan is falling further and further behind the rest of the world and declining.
Ordinary working people are becoming poorer and poorer, and travelling abroad is a distant dream.
What is unbelievable is that Japanese workers show no sign of being angry about this.
I am reminded of Ishikawa Takuboku's famous tanka poem.
"I work and work, but my life never gets any easier, I stare at my hands."
But if you keep looking at your hands, you will never get anywhere.
Workers of Japan!
Don't be deceived by cunning managers and a government that only favours them!
Stand up!
Let us look honestly at the cleverly constructed absurdities and our own plight and send them outward!
Something may start to move and you may start to see the light.