RENGO

in full Nihon Rodo Kumiai Sorengokai (Japanese: Japanese Trade Union Confederation), the largest national labour confederation in Japan. Founded in 1989, it absorbed its predecessorsSohyo, Domei, Churitsu Roren, and othersand brought together both private- and public-sector unions. Ideologically moderate, Rengo aims to unify and mobilize noncommunist political opposition to the ruling and generally conservative Liberal-Democratic Party. Rengo works to coordinate collective bargaining at enterprise and industrial levels; to organize unorganized workers and reverse the ongoing decline in the percentage of workers unionized; and to merge industry-level union federations into a rational structure resembling Germany's Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund. In the late 20th century Rengo had nearly eight million members. Solomon B. Levine