Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gives a speech at Rengo’s May Day rally in Tokyo on April 29 as Tomoko Yoshino, second from left, the Rengo president, looks on. (Jumpei Miura)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed to keep the ball rolling on wage hikes among midsize enterprises and rural businesses at an annual rally held by the nation’s largest labor organization, the first time Japan's top leader has attended in nearly a decade.

“We want to spread the momentum of wage hikes by all means,” Kishida told the gathering organized by Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation) in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park on April 29.

“Powerful waves (of wage hikes) are arising from the ‘shunto’ spring labor offensive this year. We will do our utmost to broaden the waves to rural areas and small and midsize enterprises.”

Rengo, the umbrella organization of labor unions, invites the prime minister as a representative of the government to its May Day rally every year. But Kishida was the first to attend the event in nine years since Shinzo Abe did so in 2014.

Tomoko Yoshino, the Rengo president, called on labor union representatives to fight for higher wages through to the end of the negotiations with employers.

“For society at large to feel that salaries have risen, wages need to be raised at small and midsize enterprises where 70 percent of workers are employed,” she said.

Rengo said about 28,500 people, mainly members of labor unions under its umbrella, participated in the gathering, including those who did so online.

Some labor unions displayed banners demanding Kishida improve working conditions for nonregular and freelance workers.

Kishida’s attendance at the May Day rally is seen as part of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s attempt to cozy up to Rengo, a key support base of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People, two opposition parties.

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