Japan Press Weekly

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2008 July 23 - 29 [LABOR]

Zenroren elects new leadership

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) on July 25 ended its 23rd Convention after adopting a two-year action policy. It also amended the Zenroren Action Program with the aim of strengthening international solidarity of trade unions.

The Convention elected a new leadership led by new Zenroren President Daikoku Masaji (Japan Federation of Prefectural and Municipal Workers' Union chair), and re-elected Odagawa Yoshikazu as Zenroren secretary general.

Daikoku said, “I keenly feel that we are now in the situation in which public opinion can influence government policies and that many people have come to support the tasks called for by Zenroren as their own, including the demand that the minimum wage be raised. Expectations are high in the Zenroren movement. I want to see this trend further increase.”

In summing up the three-day discussion, in which 80 delegates spoke, Zenroren Secretary General Odagawa Yoshikazu said, “This was a Convention that convinced everyone that Zenroren is following the high road in the labor movement.”

He said that Zenroren would put more energy into the effort to promote common action with a broader range of organizations and individuals in order to solve the working people’s hardships arising from price rises.

Referring to the struggle demanding a far-reaching revision to the Worker Dispatch Law, Odagawa called on member unions to take an active part in the campaign to collect more than five million signatures. - Akahata, July 26, 2008