Officials from the Tokyo District Court evicted former workers from the Keihin Hotel in front of JR Shinagawa Station on Jan. 25, based on a Jan. 15 provisional ruling that supported the owner's decision to sell the facility.

The former workers and labor union members who were supporting them occupied the hotel after the operator, Keihin Jitsugyo, laid off the hotel's roughly 130 employees in October in the wake of the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers group in September.

The former workers and activists chanted protest slogans in front of the hotel as they tried in vain to block the court officials from entering.

The officials, accompanied by riot police, entered the hotel around 9:25 a.m. and finished seizing the building in about 15 minutes.

During a struggle with police, a glass door was shattered, and one of the protesters was taken to a hospital after he fell down and struck his head.