Published on September 18, 2019.
This essay discusses the Osaka Prefectural Police search of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch, suspicion of forcible obstruction of business, the arrest of Take Kenichi, alleged connections involving Kiyomi Tsujimoto and Toyonaka City Assembly member Kimura Makoto, NHK Osaka’s reporting, and an article in Shukan Kinyobi, criticizing the media’s reporting stance and the reality of left-wing journalism.

September 18, 2019.
Perhaps NHK Osaka felt that its previous attitude would no longer do, for its evening news reported the matter properly.
The following headline and article in black type appeared on the social affairs page of this morning’s Sankei Shimbun.
Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch Searched.
Osaka Prefectural Police Suspect Obstruction of Business.
It was learned on the 17th from investigative sources that the Osaka Prefectural Police are investigating executives and union members of the Kansai District Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch of the All Japan Construction, Transport and General Workers’ Union, made up of workers in the cement and ready-mixed concrete industries, on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business and other charges, for allegedly obstructing a transport company’s cement shipping operations.
The prefectural police have already conducted searches of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch in Nishi Ward, Osaka City, and related locations.
The police believe more than ten people were involved and plan shortly to question executives and others.
According to investigative sources, executives of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch are suspected of obstructing business from December 12 to 14 of last year at a service station in Minato Ward, Osaka City, where a major cement sales company conducts shipping operations, by standing in front of vehicles belonging to a transport company entrusted with operations by that company.
Employees of the transport company are reportedly not members of the branch.
Some executives are also suspected of having pressured the transport company to join an association made up of cement transport operators and others.
The transport company did not comply.
When the prefectural police investigated after receiving a damage consultation from the transport company, suspicion emerged that people connected with the branch were involved.
Regarding the same branch, last month, Take Kenichi, 76, the top executive committee chairman, and others were arrested by the Shiga Prefectural Police on suspicion of attempted extortion, for allegedly conspiring with executives of the Kotō Ready-Mixed Concrete Cooperative in Shiga Prefecture and threatening the male branch manager of a trading company in Osaka City to enter into a ready-mixed concrete supply contract with a company belonging to that cooperative.
Because this is an organization whose relationship with Tsujimoto Kiyomi has been pointed out, and because it is an organization connected with Toyonaka City Assembly member Kimura Makoto, who filed a complaint over the Moritomo Gakuen issue with the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office, I thought that perhaps no paper other than the Sankei Shimbun had carried it.
The Yomiuri had not carried it.
But perhaps NHK Osaka felt that its previous attitude would no longer do, for its evening news reported the matter properly.
Then, when I searched to see what the Asahi Shimbun was doing, the following astonishing article appeared.
Was the Arrest of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Leader “on Instructions from Headquarters”?
Solidarity Union Side Protests.
Distributed Tuesday, September 18, 1:30 p.m., Shukan Kinyobi.
Was the Arrest of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Leader “on Instructions from Headquarters”?
Solidarity Union Side Protests.
Chairman Take Kenichi giving a lecture at Rengō Kaikan in Tokyo on August 25, three days before his arrest.
Photo by Kataoka Nobuyuki.
“We came under instructions from headquarters!”
A police inspector from the Organized Crime Countermeasures Division of the Shiga Prefectural Police reportedly said this on August 9 during a search of the office of the Kansai District Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch of the Solidarity Union, the All Japan Construction, Transport and General Workers’ Union, in Nishi Ward, Osaka City, and other locations.
On the 28th of the same month, Chairman Take was arrested on suspicion of attempted extortion.
The suspicion concerns a warehouse construction project for a soft-drink manufacturer carried out from March to July of last year in Higashiōmi City, Shiga Prefecture.
He allegedly conspired with executives of the Kotō Ready-Mixed Concrete Cooperative and worked on an affiliated company of a semi-major general contractor in Osaka City to purchase ready-mixed concrete from a company belonging to that cooperative.
The trading company declined the contract, but the Shiga Prefectural Police arrested four directors and others of the Kotō Ready-Mixed Concrete Cooperative on July 18 of this year, and three people including its chairman on August 9.
The search mentioned at the beginning was conducted in connection with that matter, but on the 28th, three more people, including Chairman Take and branch officers, were arrested.
The total number of arrests connected with Kotō ready-mixed concrete thus became ten, six cooperative business operators and four officers of the Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch.
In the ready-mixed concrete industry, small and medium-sized operators organize cooperatives and aim to trade with general contractors on equal terms and at proper prices through “joint receiving of orders and joint sales.”
The Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete Branch, as a labor union, has cooperated with that activity.
Movements to obstruct this activity beyond individual company frameworks had existed for some time, but recently attacks by the Osaka Wide-Area Ready-Mixed Concrete Cooperative and by “racists,” discriminatory persons, have also become court cases, and in March and June the Osaka Prefectural Police also searched Kansai Ready-Mixed Concrete, claiming that strikes constituted “forcible obstruction of business.”
Was this also “on instructions from headquarters”?
The Solidarity Union side protests the series of arrests, saying, “We absolutely cannot tolerate forced investigations that regard the legitimate business activities of small and medium-sized enterprise organizations and the legitimate union activities of labor unions cooperating with them as hostile,” and, “The Shiga Prefectural Police are abusing their official authority by committing unfair labor practices against business operators, telling them to ‘cut ties with Kan’nama,’” and it is appealing the injustice of the matter.
Kataoka Nobuyuki, Editorial Department, September 7, 2018 issue.
So when I searched about Shukan Kinyobi, its attitude was so astonishing that one is left speechless.
This essay continues.