Labour unions emerged in Japan in the second half of the Meiji period, after 1890, as the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization. Until 1945, however, the labour movement remained weak, impeded by a lack of legal rights, anti-union legislation, management-organized factory councils, and political divisions between “cooperative” and radical unionists.

The National Trade Union Council , commonly known in Japanese as Zenrōkyō (全労協), is a national confederation of Japanese labor unions. There was another organization of the same name from 1947 to 1950.