National Railway Workers' Union

The National Railway Workers' Union (NRU) (国鉄労働組合, Kokutetsu-rōdō-kumiai) is a Japanese trade union, which is usually referred to as Kokurō (国労) in Japanese. Historically, Kokurō represented many of the workers who worked for Japanese National Railways (JNR), from which the union derived its name. For several decades in the postwar period, Kokurō was one of the most powerful unions in Japan, with a membership in the hundreds of thousands, before falling into decline. As of 2016, Kokurō had just 9,000 members.