"Keep the Murayama assembly plant and listen to the voice of the workers," the demonstrators shouted as they punched their fists in the freezing air. Nissan has announced plans to cut 21,000 jobs—14 percent of its work force—over the next three years.

Last March, Renault, the French auto maker, bought up 36.8 percent of Nissan. The company announced plans to reduce its domestic car production by 30 percent and close five plants. The Murayama plant, along with factories in Kyoto and Aichi prefecture in central Japan, would be shut down by March 2001. Four hundred of the 3,100 workers would be kept in employment.

"The restructuring plan worked out by Carlos Ghosn [Nissan's chief operating officer] is wrong... and it will fail. We must quash that plan," stated unionist Yoji Kobayashi at a rally outside the company's headquarters.

"These drastic plans don't work in Japan," stated an official at the Murayama branch of the All Japan Metal and Machinery Information Workers Union, which helped organize the demonstration.

The action, according to the Financial Times, was "one of the largest protests targeted at one company in recent Japanese memory."

On the stock exchange, shares of Nissan fell 6 percent on January 25.  
 
 
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