Japanese Trade Union Confederation (RENGO)

Policy Agreement Concluded with DPJ for Upper House Election

On June 23, RENGO and the Democratic Party of Japan concluded their "Policy Agreement for the 20th House of Councilors Election between the Democratic Party of Japan and RENGO." The following focus activities were endorsed:

1. Shift to an economic policy which will prioritize the creation of high quality jobs and the revitalization of local economies and small to mid-sized enterprises and seek to improve the jobless rate to the 3% range.
2. Drastically amend the "Equal Employment Opportunity Law between Men and Women" to include legislation for the equal treatment of part-time workers and to prohibit indirect discrimination.
3. Immediately enact a freeze on pension premium increases and across the board benefit level reductions that will seriously effect our citizen's lives and jobs and accelerate a hollowing out of the pension system. Then work swiftly for fundamental reform of the pension system through creating a system that would bear the full amount of the national pension (basic pension) through taxation. When doing so, comprehensively revise the tax, long-term care insurance, and medical care systems and press forward with social security system reform in every aspect.

Among the attendees at the signing ceremony were President Sasamori and General Secretary Kusano from RENGO and President Okada and Secretary General Fujii from the Democratic Party of Japan. President Okada said this House of Councilors election will be a chance to "send a clear ‘No’ to this Koizumi administration that neglects its citizens." In his opening remarks, he said “the DPJ shares the same direction and feelings as RENGO and we want to fight together." To this, President Sasamori responded by saying "using our total strength with the Democratic Party of Japan we want an election that will create new form of politics."