PSPINC CEO Kenichi Uchikura's Blog

After Three Weeks, the Garbage Truck Finally Came
This morning, for the first time in three weeks, the garbage truck finally came.

 

The delay wasn’t due to a scheduling mistake or bad weather — it was the result of a country-wide sanitation workers’ strike. For nearly a month, garbage piled up on sidewalks and in alleys across neighborhoods like mine, with no end in sight. Every morning I rolled out my bins, hoping today would be the day. Every evening I rolled them back in, still full.

 

Of course, I understand that workers have the right to demand better conditions, wages, and benefits. But here’s where I struggle: I’m not comfortable with the idea of everyday citizens — families, businesses, the elderly — being used as leverage in a dispute between labor and management.

 

We, the public, weren’t the cause of the problem, yet we bore the consequences. Our neighborhoods became unsanitary. The smell, the clutter, the frustration — it all built up, literally and figuratively. And for what? To pressure the company by making our lives miserable? I don’t think that’s the right way.

 

Everyone deserves fair treatment, and I hope the workers got what they needed. But using public inconvenience as a bargaining chip feels like crossing a line. It’s one thing to fight for your rights — it’s another to do so by putting entire communities in limbo.

 

Today, as the garbage was finally collected, I felt both relief and irritation. Relief that things were finally moving again. Irritation that we were caught in the middle of something we had no part in creating.

 

Essential services matter. And so does how we treat the people depending on them.

 

https://en.bloguru.com/ken/535298/after-three-weeks-the-garbage-truck