One Paycheck from Disaster

The strike was quiet and orderly, almost friendly. Members of Kankoro (the government workers' union, mostly railway and communications employees) were out for a 15% pay increase and a year-end bonus of two months' pay instead of one. In Tokyo's mauve smog, the ruddy flames of the strikers' torches and the yellow glow of their Japanese lanterns mingled with the downtown neon lights. Blue-helmeted police grinned at the Kankoro paraders and chatted amiably. Chances for a favorable settlement were good: Prime Minister Yoshida's conservative coalition government knew that the workers needed the money.

The Japanese have the highest living standard in Asia; last week Tokyo's Ginza glittered with Christmas displays and selling was brisk. Japan is an expense account state: there is a new rich class, with fishtail Cadillacs and matched sets of Spaulding golf clubs. But the average industrial wages are low in Japan ($42 a month), and workers have almost no savings at all. The Korean war boom is spent, though prices are up 59% since 1950. For many urban families, the next paycheck is the only shield against disaster.

Thus, when things go wrong, a sudden sickness or a layoff, the plight of the worker can quickly become catastrophic--as in the case of Tatsuji Ishii, 43-year-old Tokyo tinsmith. As an artisan with a skimpy one-man business, Ishii had no salary and no union card, but he had a wife and five children. He owed the grocer, the milkman, the rice dealer. Two weeks ago he sold the family sewing machine to pay the milkman. Last week he fed the whole family a ceremonial meal of rice and red beans. Afterward Ishii strangled his wife and five children with a kimono cord, and went out to end his own life. On the street, the rice dealer accosted him and dunned him for the overdue bill.

Ishii smiled and said: "We have all eaten such a big dinner that my family is taking a nap and I am going for a walk to help my digestion. I will pay you in full in a few minutes." Then Ishii threw himself in front of a passing train.

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