The elegantly dressed, permanently polite staff of one of Tokyo’s most famous department stores are to shatter tradition and go on strike for the first time since the 1950s.
Customers of the Seibu department store in Ikebukuro were warned on its website on Wednesday that the shop would be closed all day on Thursday, owing to industrial action timed to disrupt a series of swish in-store autumnal promotions of seasonal fashion, accessories and beauty products.
Japanese department store workers — the performers of functions that include welcoming customers into the lifts and maintaining absolute spotless surfaces — have not held a full-day strike at a large outlet for more than 60 years. Their reluctance to take action is part of a decline in the number of strikes in Japan since the mid-1970s.