Ms. Yoko Sawada, Vice President of JICHIRO and Chairperson of the committee for gender equality, JICHIRO, presented the union’s ‘2014 Gender Equality Promotion Campaign’.

The following points were raised by the participants:

• To clarify common challenges and arrange joint action schedules, there must be correlation between the annual activity plans of JICHIRO and JICHIRO prefectural offices.
• The importance of promoting equal participation by women and men in the labour movement.
• It is necessary to insure a work-life balance for both men and women that leads to an increase in men’s participation in childcare and domestic duties, and a review of the working styles of men and women. JICHIRO must work to further promote measures for supporting a work-life balance in the workplace.
• The importance of capacity-building to empower women and train more female trade union leaders.

Ms. Sawada concluded the meeting by saying that it is very important to continue organising gender equality activities for men and women to promote equality in the labour movement and also in society as a whole. Not all women members wish to become union leaders but it is important to create opportunities for women whose personal circumstances prevent them from doing so. JICHIRO encourages women to play a more active role as union leaders, and each JICHIRO prefectural trade union leader undertakes to do all that is necessary to promote gender equality activities among their members.

See the article in Japanese here.