Jichiroren’s survey of living costs reveals living conditions of union members

As a main effort of its annual spring wage negotiations, Jiciroren is holding a nationwide campaign to achieve better wage levels to allow all generations to live a wealthy life. It carries out a living costs survey. Asking its members to answer a questionnaire, it analyzes their answers and clarifies how much money they need to live a decent life.

Union officials of the Okayama City municipal workers, who have actively taken part in the campaign, conversed with their union members about their actual living conditions. The conversations revealed that their current wages are insufficient to have a decent life, taking daily living expenses and children’s education costs into consideration.

One of the members said, “It was tough to answer many items in the survey, but we had a good time chatting and working on it together. We were able to deepen our trust by doing this.”

The union values dialogues as a way to cultivate relationships among members. It plans to make use of the findings in the survey in the upcoming annual struggle.