At the beginning of the meeting, Rengo's President Washio, referring to the Report of Nikkeiren's Committee for the Study of Labor Issues, criticised that the Report was far from what Rengo was insisting and, if wage increase was badly repressed, Japanese economy would become worse. As regards the Nikkeiren's idea of "equal pay for equal productivity", he commented that wages would never catch up the increase of productivity at macro level if following the idea and insisted that the "equal pay for equal work" principle should be respected. He also emphasised that all the unions should make their best effort to reach an agreement within the framework of labour-management negotiation at the industrial and enterprise level after sufficient consultation.

On the other hand, Nikkeiren's Chairman Mr. Nemoto gave the priority to employment security, not to wage increase. And he said, " the most urgent problem to challenge is "the escape from the crisis" as stated in the Report of its Committee for the Study of Labor Issues and we should first tackle the employment problem."

Rengo's General Secretary Mr. Sasamori presented Rengo's analysis of the current economic situation and described that reasonable wage increase and tax cut would recover the economy up to the 2% economic growth. Furthermore, President Washio concluded: "While both Rengo and Nikkeiren should discuss employment problem to set up the counterplan for a joint action, the wage increase should be considered as separate from employment issues and it should be negotiated between labour and management. Of course, I do agree that the priority should be given to setting up the counterplan for employment and increasing disposal income. However, repressing wage increase means abandoning the employers' responsibility when we should do all we could for the economic revival."