The process that saw Mr. Tsuyoshi Takagi elected to the presidency of Rengo (the Japanese Trade Union Confederation), Japan's largest labor organization, symbolizes the current situation that Japanese workers and labor unions find themselves in.
Mr. Takagi, head of the 830,000-member UI Zensen Domei (the Japanese Federation of Textile, Chemical, Food, Commercial, Service and General Workers' Unions), the largest private-sector labor union and the second largest member-union of Rengo, was expected to become the top Rengo leader without contest. But shortly before the candidacy deadline, Ms. Momoyo Kamo, head of Zenkoku Union (the Japan Community Union Federation), a 6,000-member group mainly composed of part-time and dispatched workers, raised her hand. She fought a good fight, getting a more-than-expected 107 votes, against 323 votes for Mr. Takagi.
Forty-two invalid and blank votes are believed to be from union representatives critical of Mr. Takagi. Ms. Kamo's candidacy challenged big labor unions that have been influencing the general direction of Rengo's activities, including the selection of Rengo's next top leader through negotiations behind closed doors. It also represented the sentiment of members of Rengo who are against a revision of the pacifist Constitution. Mr. Takagi's UI Zensen Domei and Mr. Seiji Maehara, the new leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, which so far has had close ties with Rengo, favor such a revision.