News Media Guild

TOKYO, April 21 – A Japanese court ordered Associated Press to pay a fired AP union leader $4,500 a month for violating that nation’s labor law, according to the Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers Unions (Shimbun Roren).
Tsukada Newser
BACK PAY: Union attorney Kanae Doi, left, and fired AP union leader Atsushi Tsukada, right, at news conference in Tokyo, April 22, 2004. Shimbun Roren photo

The ruling by Tokyo District Court Judge Kenichiro Masunaga involves photographer Atsushi Tsukada, who was terminated in October, 2002 just as employees were planning the first strike in ten years against AP in Japan. The back pay award is retroactive to December, 2002. The judge rejected AP’s arguments that Tsukada’s position was “redundant” as a result of the creation of a new regional photo center in Bangkok, Thailand.

Union attorney Kanae Doi said the court examined claims that the AP needed to cut costs, but found AP failed to prove a pressing economic reason for the dismissal.

The AP also failed to show any objective and justifiable reason in selecting Tsukada for dismissal, Doi said in a statement.

Members of the News Media Guild and TNG-CWA Local 1314 rallied to Tsukuda’s defense, leafleting AP’s corporate headquarters in New York last year. Tsukada had addressed delegates to the Guild’s Representative Assembly meeting.

Despite the victory, it’s not clear whether AP will appeal the ruling or reinstate Tsukada, whose work has graced the pages of AP’s in-house magazine, AP World.

The News Media Guild and its parent union, The Newspaper Guild-CWA, are launching a worldwide petition drive urging the company to respect workers’ rights and reinstate Tsukada.