The , or Sà Âdà Âmei for short, was a national trade union federation in Japan during the early post-World War II era. Re-established in 1946 based on its pre-war predecessor founded in 1919, Sà Âdà Âmei represented the cooperative wing of the Japanese labor movement. In contrast to more radical federations, Sà Âdà Âmei's ideology was built on accepting the framework of a capitalist society and seeking to defend workers' interests through negotiation and partnership with management, a model that resembled the mainstream unionism of the United States. From its inception, it was dominated by the Japan Socialist Party.
Despite its cooperative philosophy, Sà Âdà Âmei was not passive and engaged in militant tactics when it deemed them necessary. It played a central role in the major labor conflicts and initiatives of the immediate post-war years, including the planned 1947 general strike and the creation of the Economic Recovery Council. With the support of the occupation authorities, it sponsored the creation of anti-communist Democratization Leagues (Mindo) to counter leftist influence in rival unions. Following the rise of the more confrontational Sà Âhyà  federation in 1950, Sà Âdà Âmei became a leading force on the "right wing" of the labor movement, aligning with US-backed anti-communist initiatives like the Japan Productivity Center. The traditions and political alignment of Sà Âdà Âmei were later inherited by the Dà Âmei federation, and its cooperative principles, though initially a minority view, became foundational to the system of enterprise unionism that would dominate Japan in the following decades.
The original Sà Âdà Âmei was founded in 1919 and was the primary federation for trade unions in pre-war Japan. At its peak in 1936, it had fewer than 500,000 members out of an estimated national workforce of over 17 million. Like most independent unions, it was crushed during the wartime period, with all trade unions being officially abolished in 1940 and replaced by the government-controlled Industrial Patriotic Association (Sangyà  Hà Âkokukai, or Sampo).
Following Japan's surrender in 1945 and the subsequent encouragement of unionization by the Allied occupation authorities, labor organizing revived rapidly. Veterans of the pre-war Sà Âdà Âmei were active in this process, with some, for instance, helping to establish new unions in Kawasaki by January 1946. The revived federation carried the cooperative message of its predecessor into the post-war era. From its post-war inception, Sà Âdà Âmei was dominated by the Japan Socialist Party. Its first president was Komakichi Matsuoka, a conservative pre-war labor leader who was also a Socialist Party member of the post-war Diet. Many other Sà Âdà Âmei officials were likewise active Socialist Party members.
By the end of 1948, the Sà Âdà Âmei had 924,302 members, making it the second-largest federation after the National Congress of Industrial Unions (Sanbetsu). The federation's backbone was the conservative Textile Workers' Union. Sà Âdà Âmei consistently rejected Sanbetsu's proposals for a merger.
In the spring of 1946, Sà Âdà Âmei advocated for a "Movement for Industrial Recovery to Overcome the Production Crisis," which proposed that unions should participate directly in corporate and national economic planning. This initiative was aimed at "democratizing industry" and achieving a "planned economy." Sà Âdà Âmei subsequently joined with the Keizai Dà Âyà «kai, a new organization of reform-oriented capitalists, to form an Economic Recovery Council to pursue these goals.
Despite its cooperative platform, Sà Âdà Âmei joined with its rival Sanbetsu to plan a massive general strike scheduled for 1 February 1947. Amid popular anger over economic collapse, a Sanbetsu-Sà Âdà Âmei Joint Struggle Committee was formed to coordinate the action, which was expected to involve about 6 million public and private sector workers. However, at the last moment on January 31, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the strike to be called off. Realizing the rank and file would not defy the Supreme Commander, the organizers complied with the ban. The Economic Recovery Council, which had brought the two rival federations together, also collapsed after just over a year, as the two organizations were, in a popular idiom of the time, "sleeping together but dreaming separately."
Sà Âdà Âmei was also a key player in the anti-communist movement within the labor world. With the support of occupation authorities, it helped sponsor the creation of Democratization Leagues (Mindo) inside unions influenced by the Japan Communist Party. In February 1949, under Sà Âdà Âmei's leadership, these groups convened to form a new National Trade Union Congress (Zenkoku Rà Âdà  Kumiai Kaigi) to intensify the anti-communist offensive in all unions and campaign for the Social Democratic Party.
The landscape of the Japanese labor movement shifted significantly with the establishment of the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (Sà Âhyà Â) in 1950. Sà Âhyà  was initially founded with American encouragement as a non-communist alternative to Sanbetsu, but it soon adopted an aggressive platform of class-struggle unionism, supporting the left wing of the socialist party and militant workplace activism.
This development positioned Sà Âdà Âmei as a leading voice on the "right" of the labor movement, in opposition to the more powerful Sà Âhyà Â. In 1954, several industrial federations broke away from Sà Âhyà  to form the new Zenrà  federation, which shared Sà Âdà Âmei's cooperative stance. Throughout the 1950s, Sà Âdà Âmei and Zenrà  allied with corporate leaders and the state. In 1955, Sà Âdà Âmei pledged its support for the Japan Productivity Center (JPC), a US-backed initiative to promote labor-management cooperation to increase industrial productivity, in exchange for promises that the resulting economic gains would be shared with workers. This alignment also attracted support from American diplomatic and labor officials, who cultivated ties with Sà Âdà Âmei and Zenrà  leaders as part of a Cold War strategy to counter leftist influence in Japan. Despite this support, Sà Âdà Âmei and Zenrà  remained a minority force; in 1955, they accounted for just 10 percent of organized workers in Japan, while Sà Âhyà  represented about 50 percent. In 1964, Sà Âdà Âmei merged with Zenrà  and the National Council of Government and Public Workers' Unions (Zenkankà Â) to form the Japanese Confederation of Labour (Dà Âmei).
Sà Âdà Âmei's core ideology was cooperative unionism, a position that set it apart from other major post-war labor federations. It accepted the basic framework of a capitalist society and saw its primary role as defending workers within that system. Sà Âdà Âmei's leaders argued that labor and management had a common interest in ensuring the viability of capitalism, even as they acknowledged that predictable differences between the two sides would arise. They believed these differences could normally be settled through good-faith bargaining.
However, Sà Âdà Âmei's cooperative stance did not preclude industrial action. The federation maintained that its tactics could be militant, even if its ultimate goals were not revolutionary. This approach was described as "cooperation backed by strength and a willingness to strike." A notable example occurred in October 1946, when the Sà Âdà Âmei-affiliated union at the Nippon Kokan Kawasaki steel mill, despite proclaiming its belief in the "mutual prosperity of labor and capital," launched a successful week-long strike. The action secured a contract giving the union a veto over management decisions related to transfers and dismissals, a significant gain in authority for the union.
The following unions were affiliated in 1945:
The following unions were later affiliates:
The social democratic tradition of Sà Âdà Âmei was carried on by the Dà Âmei federation, which emerged as a major national labor center. The cooperative unionism that Sà Âdà Âmei had championed in the early post-war years, though initially a minority position, eventually became the dominant model for labor-management relations in Japan. However, the form of "ultra-cooperative" unionism that became hegemonic from the 1960s onward was more extreme in its cooperation with management than the Sà Âdà Âmei model, which had always retained a willingness to engage in militant struggle as a last resort.