RENGO organized the 2000 Shunto Rally on 4 March 2000 in Tokyo with a slogan "Action for reforming Japan and vitalizing livelihood." Participants after the rally made a five-kilometer march and appealed to citizens on the street for the wage hike, job creation and pension reform. Individual unions will hammer out an agreement, setting the intensive period to receive the answers from the management from 15 to 24 March.

The rally started with Mr. Washio, President of RENGO, speaking before 45,000 participants. "Companies should look after profit by wiping out the sense of insecurity about jobs, not by cutting the total labour cost. We should fight against the suppression of wage hike." He criticized the reform of pension system that he thought was an outrage of the coalition government. As regards the workers' protection in the case of enterprise reorganization, he insisted that the revision of commercial law should be accompanied with the enactment of workers' protection law providing the advance consultation with the trade union. "Our voice is a minority in the Diet, but a major opinion among the people. We should win both wage hike and employment security and drag down the LDP/Liberty Party/Komei coalition from a position of power."

Mr. Sasamori, General Secretary of RENGO, presented the current situation report and keynote propositions, in particular on wage hike, the extension of employment contracts, pension/medical reform, and the revision of commercial law.

Mr. Hatoyama, Chairman of Democratic Party of Japan, and Mr. Ito, Vice Chairman of Social Democratic Party of Japan, made greeting on behalf of respective political parties. Mr. Ogino, Mr. Takagi and Mr. Hattori presented the updated reports for the sectors of metal trades, chemical/textile and small and medium enterpriese respectively.