in the media
DER SPIEGEL 24/2006 vom 12.06.2006, Seite 54
Autor: Kristina Allgwer
Das Lied seines Lebens
Warum ein Japaner seit 1981 vor dem Werkstor singt Niemand beachtet Tetsuro Tanaka. Die Wachleute des Technologiekonzerns Oki sehen kaum auf, wenn er seinen grauen Motorroller vor dem Fabriktor abstellt. Die Schulkinder, die vorbeilaufen, ignorieren ihn, wenn er sich einen Cowboyhut auf die schulterlangen Haare setzt, einen Mikrofonstnder aufbaut und sich seine Gitarre umhngt. Die Arbeiter, die nach und nach durchs Tor strmen, sehen peinlich berhrt zur Seite, wenn er zu singen beginnt. Es ist kurz vor acht Uhr morgens in Hachioji, einer Universittsstadt im Groraum Tokio. Tetsuro Tanaka, 58, steht hier jeden Tag um diese Zeit, eine halbe Stunde lang. Seit ihm vor 25 Jahren gekndigt wurde.
ZNet
David Vs. Goliath
by David McNeill; April 18, 2006
Tanaka Tetsuro has been protesting his dismissal from an electronics company for a quarter of a century. Now his struggle, one of the longest one-man campaigns in Japanese history, is to be the subject of a documentary.
It’s a Friday morning in Takao, west Tokyo and a sleepy grey army of salary-men and women is snaking through the gates of Oki Electric.
At a few minutes before 8 a.m., Tanaka Tetsuro pulls up on a moped outside the factory gates, sets up a mike stand attached to a bullhorn and begins strumming his guitar and singing:
There is a wall between you and me which we can’t see
Wall of borders, wall of language, wall of history and life
Nobody — not the bleary-eyed workers, security guards or even the schoolchildren and mothers walking by Oki — acknowledges the odd sight of a middle-aged man in a cowboy hat crooning peace songs in English before one of Japan’s largest electronics companies.
After years of performing here every morning from 8 — 8.30am, it is as though Tanaka has blended into the background like the local milkman. “He’s nothing to do with us,” sniffs a guard. “He was fired a long time ago.”
Tanaka in fact was fired on June 29, 1981, the day after he refused a compulsory transfer order from his managers. He has been singing his homemade ditties here every day since, outlasting 13 Japanese prime ministers, almost four US presidents and at least three Oki bosses. Now aged 58, he has spent almost half his lifetime in a relentless quest for justice. “I’m stubborn,” he admits.
Sacked corporate cowboy sings long-time lonesome blues
Deborah Cameron, Tokyo
The Age July 8, 2006
TWENTY-FIVE years ago Tetsuro Tanaka, an engineer, was fired from his job for refusing to take part in compulsory morning callisthenics. Since then, every working day, he has gone to the company gate at 8am and sung protest songs for half an hour. Once a month, on the anniversary of his sacking, he sings all day.
Dressed in a black cowboy hat, wearing dark glasses and with a megaphone and battery pack, Mr Tanaka, 58, is a troubadour for the times.
Playing folk guitar, he sings of familiar themes: misused corporate power, union disintegration, the collapse of mateship and the loneliness of the sacked worker.
25 Years On the Grass
Workers Online 14 July 2006
A Japanese engineer, sacked for refusing to do compulsory company callisthenics, is celebrating his 25th year of strike action this month.
Tetsuro Tanaka, a union activist at telecommunications equipment manufacturer OKI Electric, has kept a daily vigil of his former workplace for a quarter of a century.
Every morning he sings and plays guitar at the factory gates, spending an entire day there once a month on the anniversary of his sacking.
Tanaka wields his guitar, singing about attacks on unions, the corporate undermining of mateship, and the loneliness of the sacked worker. For an income he relies on music teaching and concert dates at union and folk gigs.
He has been presented with human rights awards, sung at union concerts, provided support for other sacked workers and, as recently as last month, was being forcefully evicted from an OKI shareholder’s meeting.
Last month he gave moral support to a protesting schoolteacher, suspended without pay for refusing to stand and sing the national anthem.
Tanaka says the compulsory callisthenics was less about fitness and more about conformity, and the companies actions were simply a ruse to get rid of him for being a union troublemaker.
Recent media reports claim Tanaka’s troubles started when management identified him as a union activist after he also objected to forced redundancies and complained that managers were bullying his workmates.
OKI, who sponsor the St George Illawarra Dragons NRL club, presented Tanaka with two options, take a job a long way from his home, or ‘agree’ to be fired. He took neither, instead taking up his stand outside the factory gates in a ritual that has become so regular, local schoolkids time themselves by Tanaka’s presence – if he’s still singing they aren’t late for school.
“The most important thing is not to think of yourself,” Tanaka recently told the media. “Don’t protest selfishly, don’t think of yourself. The conclusion to a life of selfishness is unhappiness. Clever people profit by helping others. Recently I have felt very happy. Fired people have no retirement age.”
Sydney documentary maker, Maree Delofski, is making a film entitled Mr Tanaka Will Not Do Callisthenics.
