Japan union head calls for government to work more on raising pay

The chair of Japan’s metalworkers’ union urged the government to accelerate efforts to raise pay, while expressing concern over premature tightening steps from the central bank.

“We need to see improvements this year,” said Akihiro Kaneko, president of the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions (JCM), speaking about the government’s measures to help smaller firms pass costs on to customers throughout the supply chain.

“We’ll never have any improvement if we delay this effort for the next five or ten years,” Kaneko said in an interview Tuesday.