Rengo President Sasamori re-elected
In our previous issue, we reported that the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) was going to hold a presidential election. As a result of the election on October 3, Kiyoshi Sasamori, the incumbent President, was re-elected.
As the main policy initiative over the next two years, Rengo aims to expand its organization. The goals are to reform the organizational activities at regional confederation meetings and provide even stronger personnel and financial assistance to regional councils. Moreover, since small- to medium-scale labor unions find it difficult to convene according to industry, Rengo plans to fundamentally strengthen regional unions where these small- to medium-scale labor unions gather.
During Mr. Sasamori's past two-year tenure, Rengo has worked to expand the membership to 600,000 under Action Plan 21, its organizational policy. However, it ended up with only about 290,000 members, almost half the initial goal. Learning from this lesson and working under the new slogan of Second Action Plan 21, Rengo will make confederation-wide efforts to organize relevant companies' non-organized and non-affiliated unions as well as part-time and other atypical workers. It will reportedly spend 20% of its total budget on this project.
Mr. Sasamori noted that, to create a prosperous society where people have peace of mind, Rengo should work first and foremost on solving employment problems. He pledged that Rengo would put the raison d'etre of labor unions on the line and wage an all-out war in line with its slogan, "Prevent further unemployment, and provide a workplace for people who wish to work."
As for their policy and system demands for FY04, Mr. Sasamori reportedly will prioritize the following:
(1) Allocation of a governmental budget to make the deflationary economy a thing of the past and stimulate a business recovery
(2) Raising of public funding of basic pensions
(3) Enactment of the Part-time Work and Terminable Labour Law and the Employment Contract Law.
He also cited the following:
(4) Establishment of the basic labour rights of public service personnel in line with ILO recommendations
(5) Realization in FY05 of the Law to Assist Workers to Concurrently Work and Raise a Family, as well as the Law of Equal Employment for Both Sexes that includes prohibition of discrimination against both men and women and the prohibition of indirect discrimination
(6) Re-designing the tactics and strategies of wage negotiations by focusing on the abolition of unpaid overtime work as well as on small, medium, and local unions, with the goal of stabilizing employment and establishing work-related rules.
It may be said that, with the number of full-time employees continuing to decrease, Rengo is compelled to take the stance of "their future depends on strengthening solidarity with less advantaged workers." If they can truly spread this awareness far and wide, all the way to unions at the low end of the organization, they would no doubt see more vigorous union activity.
The six tasks mentioned above are only a small portion of the issues Rengo has to address.
All eyes will be focused on what Rengo will achieve during Mr. Sasamori's second term as President. The organization will be required, more than ever before, to show clearly and methodically to everyone how they are tackling these issues, what obstacles they need to overcome, and to what extent they have accomplished them.
