OSAKA -- About 500 day laborers continued their sit-in Thursday at an Osaka labor welfare facility, demanding nighttime shelter in a protest that began Dec. 3.
The laborers, many of whom are elderly men, take turns warming up at a nearby Christian center and share shifts sitting on vinyl tarpaulin on the third floor of the labor office, which is in charge of finding jobs for them.
What the men want, they said, is simple -- to be able to stay at the Nishinari Labor Welfare Center, in the Airin district of Nishinari Ward, at night. But the Osaka Prefectural Government, to which the day laborers made their demand, has refrained from giving a clear-cut reason for its refusal.