Special resolution for creating a movement to protect human life
Osaka Zenrokyo (National Trade Union Council – Osaka) 

From the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to the opening of this conference during the period when a fifth wave is about to begin, the coronavirus crisis has reached one year. With this continuing long pandemic, it has been a long period that both the labor movement and its various activities have had to be scaled back. However, with the spread of the coronavirus, dismissals and shift reductions, loaning out of employees, and so on, the burden has been shifted onto non-regular workers and women and the number of people suffering daily hardship has increased. For this reason, this was also a year of expectation among labor unions. Amid this, to say nothing of the lack of policy from the LDP-Komeito administration, foolish plans like the GoTo Travel campaign caused an explosion of infections and people were made to suffer even further.

In addition, in Osaka, Ishin reduced hospitals and health centers, cut back civil servants, and so on, and many public services were privatized or eliminated. As a result, Osaka was unable to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and lead the nation in casualties.

To cut off infections, a number of measures were taken: PCR tests were rapidly increased, asymptomatic infectious cases were flushed out, isolation facilities were prepared, doctors and nurses were publicly employed, a system of paid sick leave for all infected patients and childcare during their illness was established, and so on. Despite this, Ishin’s policies were mistakes like the PPE raincoats, isodine gargling, self-isolation police, and so on.

Despite leading the country in fatalities, they persisted in proceeding with the “Osaka Metropolis Plan”, endangering the lives and livelihoods of the population.

Regarding world affairs, in Myanmar the army launched a coup d’etat and the lives of many citizens have been taken. In Hong Kong, freedom of speech has been lost, and many people are suffering from a loss of hope. The situation of human rights violations in the world has become prominent, such as the oppression of political opponents by Belarus, Russia, and the military government in Thailand, and the deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States.

Since the Abe administration, it is a time that the roots of democracy are surely being shaken, with falsification of official documents, personal diversion of the public budget, suppression of citizen and labor movements, unclear public expenditures and falsification of official documents like the Moritomo-Kake cherry blossom viewing party, political meddling in science conferences, suppression of jeering and heckling during elections, politics of oppression in which threats are made against people appearing in the media, and so on. It can perhaps be said that we are approaching the entrance to fascism.

If the political conditions in this country remain as they are, it is clear that it will become a society with much worse disparity and public surveillance. For the many of us in the Osaka National Trade Union Council with occupations that expose us to risk of infection, we resolve to occupy one end of the struggle to overcome the Suga administration, which is forcibly conducting the Olympics and Paralympics, to reduce infection for a society which can be worked and lived in in a usual manner, and to create a movement for a society that can be expected to protect human rights and health.

July 24, 2021
32 Regular Convention