Rengo membership declines

The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), Japan's largest national trade union center, on April 10 announced that its membership in 2003 is 6,870,163, down 269,409 from the previous year.

The Rengo Central Executive Committee said that the biggest reason for the decline is personnel cuts by corporations rather than business failures.

The Rengo membership has continued to decline since 1996. This is in contrast to the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) membership, which keeps on increasing. But Zenroren's share in the entire union membership is still less than 10 percent. (end)