New Declaration of Refusal of War Co-operation
Special resolution of the 86th Regular Committee Meeting of Doro-Chiba
New Declaration of Refusal of War Co-operation
A war is going to swallow the whole world for the third time in the recent history. We now live face to face with the crisis of imminent nuclear war. We are at a crossroads in history. It is urgent for us to launch a determined and resolute struggle to stop the war in solidarity with workers of the whole world. This is an essential task for a labor union.
A groundless propaganda is rampant that the root of every vice is Putin and justice is represented by NATO, demanding people to identify oneself with the state and to side with “justice”. Unprecedented arms buildup is loudly called for without restriction and horror, hatred and national unity are going to be the spirit of the time. A drive for war is raging beyond control in every corner of the society.
We vehemently denounce Russian invasion into Ukraine. It is evident, however, that the root cause of this war was created by the US and NATO as is clearly exposed by the NATO policy of aggressive expansion toward East accompanied by a large amount of arms supply under the leadership of the US government for decades. Capitalism has lost its scope of further development and producing various conflicts all over the world. Neoliberalism faces a total collapse as a result of its inherent contradictions. These are the real causes of the present war.
In East Asia, under the name of “Taiwan contingency”, a crisis of aggressive war on China is imminent. In the midst of the Ukrainian war, the US Biden administration declared “to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan” and the Japanese Kishida government, responding to this, has launched a rush for “an explosive military budget expansion mounting to 10 trillion yen”, assurance of capabilities to attack enemy bases, rapid transformation of Okinawa and Nansei-Islands into military bastions and the constitutional revision. Furthermore, it is to be noted that the Japanese government and business lobbyists are the world largest supporters of Myanmar military regime.
The post-WWII understanding of history is now going to be wiped out. Japan’s war waged under the deceitful name of “Co-Prosperity of Great Asia, Five Nation’s Cooperation”, was in fact a war of aggression to massacre 20 million Asian people. This brutal history should never be forgotten.
For these 35 years’ struggle against the Division and Privatization of the National Railways, we have firmly defended our solid unity in spite of a large number of dismissals of union members. It has been proved that the privatization and war were one and same attack on the working class. Our strike against the Iraq war in 2003 has given us an unexpected encouraging light on our future: A new struggle of international solidarity of workers beyond national borders has begun which has been developing since then until today. This is the real cause that we have now unshakable confidence in the definitive struggle of workers which is capable to terminate neoliberalism—capitalism.
Taking the opportunity of Iraq war, the contingency laws were enacted and consequently we railway workers have been forced to have a legal duty to cooperate with war. The crisis of the aggressive war against Ukraine, which inevitably links to a war against China, makes it an evident, urgent and inevitable task for us to confront the government’s war policy and refuse cooperation with the war. It is the special duty of workers who demand peace and this task cannot be carried out without our strong unity. It is the struggle which needs the extensive solidarity of workers of the world beyond the national borders. We, workers, have to be ready for a fierce struggle to confront close formation of reactionary forces and to stop the war by putting up long time resistance.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport now intends to lay down the National Reconstruction Plan, which enforces closure of 40 percent’s JR conventional railway lines for the concentration of “strength of nation” on the national defense. Another investigative commission about rail freight traffic, with the participation of Ministry of Defense, has started to tackle with the problem of military utilization of rail transport as the frontal task. The transportation exercises of armored vehicles and 155mm Howitzer etc. have already begun. Company unions have cooperated with it.
To establish a solid base for waging such a hard struggle, we have issued “Joint Appeal of Three Unions (Doro-Chiba, Kan-Nama, Minato-Godo) for 25th November Workers Rally” in February. And since then, we have been calling on worker around the country and the world to join us this November Rally in Tokyo for the revitalization of the labor movement by means of making a common plan for action.
Workers of the world have stood up for struggle against neoliberalism and war. Under the extraordinary reality in Japan, in which wages have gone down for 30 years, steep rise of prices destroys especially 20 million irregular workers’ lives in the midst of the failure of neoliberalism, Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war. Employment, workers’ rights, medical treatment, social security, education and all social life have been destroyed. We have reached the limits of our patience. Now is the time to rise up for our struggle.
We must not permit utilization of any railroad for the purpose of war. We will rise up for the struggle against war by united efforts of people in Asia and the world over suffering under the tyranny. The construction of peaceful future is realized only by our own hands. We refuse to cooperate with war; it is our duty for peace.
We have passed the above resolution.
June 26, 2022
86th Regular Committee of National Railways Motive Power Union of Chiba
