The , often abbreviated to , was a left-leaning union confederation. Founded in 1950, it was the largest labor federation in Japan for several decades.

Origins

In the immediate aftermath of Japan's defeat in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the United States-led

Allied Occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...

issued directives legalizing labor unions, which were then protected by the new

Constitution of Japan The Constitution of Japan is the supreme law of Japan. Written primarily by American civilian officials during the occupation of Japan after World War II, it was adopted on 3 November 1946 and came into effect on 3 May 1947, succeeding the Meij ...

promulgated in 1947. In the early postwar years, numerous labor unions formed in industries throughout Japan, many of which were under the influence of the

Japan Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest List of political parties in Japan, political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest List of communist parties#Modern n ...

. However, in 1950, following the advent of the global

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, and taking advantage of the sense of crisis precipitated by the sudden outbreak of the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

, conservative Japanese government and business leaders launched, with the tacit approval of US Occupation authorities, a " Red Purge" to remove communists and suspected communists from government and private-sector jobs. As part of the purge, Japanese conservatives fomented "democracy cells" within the established, Communist Party-dominated labor unions. As these unions collapsed amid the purge, the cells emerged and joined with some affiliates of the Japanese Federation of Labour to form a new labor federation, the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan, or Sōhyō.

Early militancy

Conservatives hoped that the new federation would be more moderate than the federations controlled by the Communist Party, which had been extremely militant. However, Sōhyō rapidly fell under the sway of the

Japan Socialist Party The was a major socialist and progressive political party in Japan which existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was the primary representative of the Japanese left and main opponent of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party for most of its ex ...

and took the lead in organizing an escalating series of increasingly large and contentious labor actions over the course of the

1950s File:1950s decade montage.png, 370x370px, Top, L-R: U.S. Marines engaged in street fighting during the Korean War, late September 1950; The first polio vaccine is developed by Jonas Salk.Centre, L-R: US tests its first thermonuclear bomb with co ...

, and increasingly became involved in political protests as well. On May 1, 1952, Sōhyō spearheaded a nationwide day of protest against the perceived one-sided nature of the

Peace Treaty A peace treaty is an treaty, agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually country, countries or governments, which formally ends a declaration of war, state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an ag ...

ending the Occupation of Japan. Although most of these activities were peaceful, a violent clash between protesters and police outside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo led to several deaths and injuries and became remembered as " Bloody May Day." Over the rest of the 1950s, Sōhyō became actively involved in a number of political and social movements, including movements to ban nuclear weapons and against US military bases in Japan. It also led a large number of strikes for higher wages across many different industries. Sōhyō's period of militancy culminated in 1960 when it took a leading role in the massive Anpo protests against revision of the US Japan Security Treaty, as well as the large-scale strike at the

Miike Coal Mine , also known as the , was the largest coal mine in Japan,Karan, P.P. & Stapleton, K.E. (1997) ''The Japanese city'p.181University Press of Kentucky Retrieved January 2012. located in the area of the city of Ōmuta, Fukuoka and Arao, Kumamoto ...

in northern

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

. As part of the anti-Security Treaty Struggle, Sōhyō organized a nationwide general strike that involved 6.4 million workers and remains the largest recorded strike in Japanese history. However, both these efforts ended in disastrous defeats, and thereafter Sōhyō increasingly retreated from contentious strikes in favor of more moderate workplace actions.

Merger to form Rengo

A large portion of Sōhyō merged with the more conservative Japanese Confederation of Labor (Domei) and other unions to form

Rengo Rengo is a city and commune located in the Zona Central of Chile, situated in the Cachapoal Province of the O'Higgins Region at a distance of south of the city of Rancagua and south of the national capital Santiago. It was named after the c ...

in 1987. Rengo was formally launched in 1989.Rengo websit
Rengo 2010 website
Retrieved on August 2012 Some elements of Sōhyō instead joined one of two new federations: the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), and the National Trade Union Council (Zenrokyo).

Affiliates

The following unions were affiliated:

Leadership

Presidents

:1950: Takeo Muto :1953: Totaro Fujita :1956: Yukitaka Haraguchi :1958:

Ōta Kaoru Ōta, Ota, or Ohta may refer to the following: People * Ota (wife of Arnulf of Carinthia), Queen of the East Franks 888-899, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire 896-899 *Ota (cartoonist), Brazilian cartoonist * Atsuya Ota, Japanese basketball pla ...

:1966: Toshikatsu Horii :1970: Makoto Ichikawa :1978: Motofumi Makieda :1983: Takeshi Kurokawa

General Secretaries

:1950: Zengoro Shimagami :1951: Minoru Takano :1955: Akira Iwai :1970: Shogo Oki :1976: Mitsuo Tomizuka :1983: Eikichi Makoto

References

External links

Kyoto Sohyo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sohyo National trade union centers of Japan Progressivism in Japan Trade unions established in 1950 Trade unions disestablished in 1989