JRU Called on Union Leaders to Stand Together in its Fight for Denuclearization and against Union-busting ITF Asia-Pacific Railway Workers’ Meeting

July 29-30 , 2011

 

JRU sent its delegates to the ITF Asia-Pacific Railway Workers’ Meeting held in Bangkok on 29-30 July. We submitted two motions; one is “Motion to Secure Safety and Employment of Transport Workers in Times of Disasters”, and the other, “Motion: The Protection of Trade Union Rights for Transport Workers”, and positively participated in the discussion.

Their experiences evoked a favorite response.
In the “Motion to Secure Safety and Employment of Transport Workers in Times of Disasters”, we incorporated lessons from the 3.11 mega-disaster, especially the necessity of the instruction manual for railway workers to respond to the disasters and our efforts for denuclearization.

Brother Abe, President of Tohoku region office of JRFU, spoke about his recent experience to rescue his fellow driver who had been missing when the tsunami engulfed his locomotive. He emphasized the importance of protecting workers’ life.

Brother Iga from Mito region office of JREU is a person concerned who was affected by the nuclear accident. He touched on the fact that his workplace and union office was closed due to nuclear accident and he was forced to move to the evacuation shelter with his newborn baby. He called on the participants not to believe the false propaganda of “The nuclear plants are safe,” and to promote the campaign for denuclearization.

Their remarks caused big repercussions and the both received encouragement from the union delegates. Brother Iga was asked to translate his speech into English by a woman representative from the ITF. We, JRU, will deliver lessons from the disaster to workers across the world and play a major role to meet the challenge of denuclearization.

Delegates from unions in Asia- Pacific region adopted the second motion in solidarity
In the meeting Brother Yamada expressed his full solidarity with SRUT in its fight against union-busting, and at the same time, demonstrated his determination to fight back against oppression of JRU.

On the contrary, Japan Railway Trade Unions Confederation (JR-Rengo) demanded amendment of the motion, pronouncing that “What JRU talked about cannot be considered as union oppression.” We rejected their demand, and the chair took a vote.

As a result, it was only JR-Rengo who was against the motion. The motion was adopted by majority vote. Participants in the meeting agreed with JRU despite the obstacle by JR-Rengo.
In the wake of the ITF Congress held in Mexico last year, workers expressed solidarity with JRU.

JRU will firmly stand together with workers across the world who fight against every oppression of labor movement.