NAGANO (Japan): Junshin Hosono says he never thought of himself as a worker, at least not the way Karl Marx or Jimmy Hoffa ever thought of workers. Hosono is a Buddhist monk, and for 28 years he has chanted prayers and offered spiritual guidance at Zenkoji, the prestigious complex of temples that is the soul of this city.

“I always regarded myself as a monk, 24 hours a day,” said Hosono, 53, standing under a wooden awning one afternoon last week, trying to keep a cold rain off his shaved head.

But monks have bosses too, and even in a temple the boss can sometimes be a problem. Last fall, Hosono clashed with Gencho Komatsu, the 73-year-old head priest of the Tendai sect at Zenkoji. In short order, the monk found himself banished to a tiny, windowless storage room where he was ordered to spend each day writing out Buddhist sutras until further notice.

Hosono said the head priest also banned him from the main floor of the Daikanjin temple, the sect’s headquarters at Zenkoji, and barred him from speaking to other monks and presiding over spiritual matters such as funerals that help provide him with a modest income.

“It was harassment,” Hosono said. “I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to release me from that room.”

So the monk went out and got himself a union card.

Along with four sympathetic monks and four office workers from the Daikanjin temple, Hosono formed a small but certified union affiliated with Japan’s National Confederation of Trade Unions. The organization says it is the first time Japanese monks have ever banded into an affiliate. With overall membership on the wane in Japan, union leaders were only too happy to welcome newcomers, no matter how unconventional the trade.

“As long as they are employed and get paid, they are technically workers,” said Yuichi Kizuki, the confederation’s secretary-general.

It’s not certain what the union can do to help Hosono. He’s not looking for a raise, though he’ll consider compensation. He laughs at suggestions that there might be a strike at the temple over his case. He doesn’t even think he will remain a union member if his grievance is resolved.

Above all, he worries that he has taken the battle with his boss out of the closed world of Zenkoji, where disputes have traditionally been dealt with behind the temple gates. His activism, he fears, could embarrass one of Japan’s most revered Buddhist sites.

“I know people might think the idea of a monk joining a union is a joke,” he said. “But this is important. It is not funny.”—Dawn/Los Angeles Times News Service