History of Japanese Labor Unions 17

There was once a time when there was a single anime worker who was clandestinely (secretly from the company) a member of the Eisanro union.
What's more, that person increased the number of union members at his workplace.
That was the starting point of anime at Eisanro.
That workplace was Aプロ/A-Pro (now シンエイ動画/Shin-Ei Doga).
The person then transferred to Mushi Productions. This time, that person organized the workers at Mushi Productions.
At the time, Mushi Productions was clandestine (the union had not been notified to the company), and called itself the "West Branch XX Team."

In the broadcasting industry, there is a large subcontracting company called "東通/Totsu." Because they were subcontractors, they were not full-time employees of the TV station, and none of them were organized.
Eisanro organized these people as well. They called it the "TV Branch."

Furthermore, we started with Channel 4, then 6, 8, 10, and 12, and organized the unorganized workers at each station. Although we were a minority within the TV station.

At that time, Eisanro was involved in independent film productions, such as "The Witness's Chair" (1965/directed by Satsuo Yamamoto). (*Director Yamamoto shot films for 全農映/ Zenno-Ei.)

We also made contract holders and employees of something called the "National Film Rural Association" into union members.
However, this company was originally formed when a company called "全農映/Zenno-Ei" went bankrupt, so everyone here had experience in the labor movement and was understanding.
So here we had good conditions to be able to carry out our activities openly, rather than clandestinely. We called ourselves the "Iida Branch" after the area where we were located.

People from "理研化学/Riken Kagaku", which was in the same area, also belonged to the same branch.

Diagram of the relationships between Japanese film-related labor unions (1980s, creator unknown)

The original illustrations for this book are by Harada.