Workers call for early settlement of nuke crisis at May Day event

TOKYO, May 1 Kyodo -
Around 21,000 workers gathered at a Tokyo park Sunday, calling for an early settlement of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and compensation for damage it inflicted as well as support for areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
At the 82nd annual May Day event hosted by the National Confederation of Trade Unions, known as Zenroren, its chairman, Sakuji Daikoku, called for a change in the country's energy policy from one to promote nuclear power.
''Let's try to stop (the country from) promoting nuclear power and seek transformation of its energy policy,'' Daikoku said in his address at Yoyogi Park.
Mitsuru Ando, vice chairman of the union in Miyagi, the prefecture hardest hit by the natural disasters, highlighted the plight of affected people during the event which also had Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii among participants.
''As the situation everywhere is too horrible to look at, we've continually received inquiries (from the sufferers) on matters such as how to restore their lives and how to live ahead. With rampant layoffs, solving the employment problem is an urgent issue,'' Ando said.
Elsewhere, Nobuaki Koga, president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, known as Rengo, took part in a May Day event held in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, and criticized the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan for its handling of the nuclear crisis afterward.
''It's hard not to feel that the command system (in the government on the crisis) is mixed up,'' the head of the country's largest labor union told reporters, touching on Friday's resignation of an adviser to Kan on the nuclear crisis.
It was the first time for a leader of Rengo to participate in a May Day event in a local region such as Iwate, which was also struck by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, officials of the confederation said.