First female to head Japan labor union vows to empower women

“Progress is extremely slow,” said Tomoko Yoshino, who was elected this month as head of the 7 million-member Japanese Trade Union Confederation, known as Rengo. “I will tackle all activities at Rengo from the perspective of gender equality and diversity.”

Why don't you empower the Japanese worker en masse, not just one gender, who have been progressively disempowered over the last over the last 30 years of your unions' negotiations with Japan Inc.?

And if you are looking for more inclusivity, how about the many workers who are not members of Rengo, the p/t, contract and gig workers, many women, who could benefit from any labor protections and higher wages?

Bari Bari while it lasts.....

*"The first female president of Japan’s powerful labor union federation says..."*

I don't think that word means what they think it means.

“Progress is extremely slow,”

And that is why I left Japan, it was getting me down.

I love that "empowering women" equals slaving away in the office for some company all day with everybody else.

Don't even come at me how everybody can potentially become the ceo of your dream job. Just gotta work hard enough!

All they want is more cheap ass workers.

In the departure lounge ( I have seen many too) of a famous Japanese airline at Haneda, 6 months ago,I was able to marvel at the penchant for having numerous female staff members standing around doing….not much at all.

Non productive staff get paid low wages

Japan has large numbers of staff and high costs.

This needs to change.

Lot of talk. As usual.

Just do it. Prove that change will actually be done. Don’t worry about empty vows.

""She noted that Japan placed 120th out of 156 nations in this year’s gender gap ranking by the World Economic Forum.""

Yes and most Japanese women are quite fine with that!!! if not you will see and hear a lot of noise. Over the years I have noticed that many don't even care.

Forcing equality of outcome doesn’t work.

Gender equality is a nice idea but in reality men and women cant be equal.

Mutual respect is definitely needed in Japan between men and women.

Traditionally women have been treated with less respect than men in Japan.

Although iam delighted to read respect for women is increasing , i feel empowerment is not the appropriate description.

Equal opportunity and mutual respect for men and women.

No misogyny or feminism or sexism would be a good place to start.

I guess that’s also only show because they need and want their workforce. A similar campaign is btw already running about working seniors and telling in all media how great and healthy it is and what big fun it is when still working hard at ages of 75 or 90. Pure desperation, not an inch for real women’s or seniors’ interests and rights, that’s more than obvious.

It’s about time. You go girl! Equal pay for equal work. Minimum wage of 1,700 yen an hour. Break that glass ceiling! Old Japanese men have been running Japan for way too long. Just like old white men in America who cherish the oil industry and call all the programs to help the lower and middle class communism and socialism. We need more women leaders in industry And government to lead Japan during this time of crisis.

Yeah good luck with that.

Unmotivated women can't be empowered no matter what, instead raise salary of Japanese menz reduce tax, lower education cost. Help all Japanese start family.

Stop importing low payed people.