A good friend recently suggested that it was interesting that I have established labor left political ties in two of the former Axis powers: Italy and Japan. My ties with Italy go back over 54 years and are both political and very personal. 

My son Nelson led me to Japan, a place I really had never even considered visiting. It is now three years in a row that Christina and I have visited Japan. On each trip I have met up with comrade leaders in Zenroren, the second largest labor federation with 1.3 million members. Historically, and to this day Zenroren is a federation with strong leadership from the Japanese Communist Party. The JCP is the largest communist party in the industrialized world with over 250,000 members and 16 members of the National Diet (parliament), as well as strong representation on governing bodies in urban areas. The Party has maintained its independence from Peking and Moscow, and is seen as a leader of the peace movement in Japan.

I was originally introduced to Zenroren by the very talented and effective teacher union organizer Barbara Madeloni from my home state of Massachusetts. She had done a training on internal union organizing for Zenroren a few years back and set me up to do a training in 2023 on my first visit to Japan. My training included role-playing and small group work. Keisuke Fuse, the Deputy Secretary General of Zenroren and their director of International relations ably interpreted for me.

In March of 2025, on the heels of Trump’s election, Zenroren asked me to do a forum in person, and on Zoom, to explain why Trump was elected.

On my most recent visit the topic was the resistance to Trump! Ninety-four unionists, in person and on a Zoom, showed up on March 16^th for the forum. The meeting was chaired by Secretary General Kurasawa and interpreted by Keisuke and Manubu Natori.

I sketched out the resistance to Trump as occurring on 4 levels:

Electoral
Mass resistance
Judicial and
Cultural

I brought a whistle to demonstrate the signaling methods of the anti-ICE organizers in the Twin Cities and nationwide. Three short tweets for “ICE is in the hood” and one long blast for “ICE has detained someone.” 

My presentation took place after the Venezuelan baseball team had defeated the reigning Japanese team laden with MLB All Stars like Showei Ohtani. I argued that anti-imperialism argued for the Japanese to support Venezuela in their upcoming games thru to the championship. This appeal was met with applause, as were my pleas that the Japanese stars on the Dodgers refuse to go to the White House to meet with Trump. 

Questions from the participants focused on learning more about Minneapolis and the resistance and on how leaders can better involve their rank and file members in the life of the union. Clearly here the positive influence of Labor Notes and its orientation and trainings have impacted the culture of Zenroren.

March 17 – The next day I was part of an extraordinary meeting that I helped to organize with the Zenkoku-Kowan, the federation of Japanese dockworkers. This organization has historic ties with International Longshoremen Warehouse Workers (ILWU), and comes to the convention of my union every three years to renew solidarity charters. I met with many of these leaders during my first visit in 2023. The founder of the ILWU, Harry Bridges, was married to a Japanese woman, Noriko “Nikki” Sawada who was a writer and civil rights activist. 

My friend Stas Magaronis, the President of the Propeller Club of Northern California, and a columnist for the American Journal of Transportation requested that I set up the meeting as his visit to Tokyo coincided with mine. We met at the union’s headquarters in Kamata, near the waterfront.  Zenkoku-Kowan hosted us with a delegation of 8 leaders of the  overall Federation and leaders of member long shore and clerk divisions. It was a far ranging discussion covering topics of automation and port volumes. The Japanese trade unionists described a relative decline in dockworkers wages and therefore real difficulties in recruiting young workers to the waterfront. The delegation was led by Masaya Tamada General Secretary of Zenkoku –Kowan, the National Federation of Dockworkers Union of Japan. The Japanese expressed a strong opposition to any military involvement by Japan in the US led Iran war.

Two days of labor meetings were very fruitful, but I have only barely begun to understand Japanese trade unionism.

Fortunately many of these trade unionists will be at the Labor Notes conference in Chicago in mid June.

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