Council of Japan Labor Unions

(Nihon Rodo Kumiai Hyogikai), the first large left-wing trade union association in Japan. It was created in May 1925 by 32 trade unions excluded by reformists from the Japan Federation of Labor (Nihon Rodo Sodomei). The council played a prominent role in the economic and political actions of the Japanese working class. The strikes it led at the Kyodo printing house in Tokyo in January 1926 and in the city of Hamamatsu in May 1926 evoked a nationwide response. In May 1925 it launched a mass movement in defense of the USSR and for noninterference in China. On Apr. 10, 1928, the council was officially banned by the Tanaka government.