Ageo Incident (Japanese: 上尾事件) was a mass riot that took place in 1973 at Ageo Station (Ageo, Saitama Prefecture) on the Takasaki Line of the Japanese National Railways (now East Japan Railway Company). Passengers rose up in protest against the labor dispute (work-to-rule action) carried out by the National Railway Workers' Union and the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union in Japan.
Background
In the 1970s, labor disputes occurred frequently within the Japanese National Railways, aimed at wage increases, improvements in working conditions, and opposition to redundancy dismissals. Under Japanese law, labor disputes by National Railways union members, who were employees of a public enterprise, were prohibited by the Act on Labor Relations in Public Enterprises. For this reason, the union carried out its disputes in forms that did not violate the law. This is called work-to-rule action.
At the time, Japan's young population had grown rapidly due to the postwar baby boom generation. As urban areas expanded, the number of commuting and school-going passengers continued to increase. Trains often exceeded their capacity, and railway workers were under excessive strain. Medium- and long-distance trains during the morning commute were already chronically overcrowded. As a result, operation in strict compliance with regulations was virtually impossible, and actual train operations often deviated from the rules. Taking advantage of this situation, National Railway workers carried out a slowdown in which they strictly followed the prescribed regulations in detail. Train drivers would stop trains or repeatedly run them slowly for trivial reasons, making it impossible to keep to the timetable.
From the standpoint of railway users, absences from work due to official strikes were recognized by their workplaces, but work-to-rule actions were not official strikes, so passengers had no choice but to endure these inconveniences. As the work-to-rule action continued, passengers repeatedly suffered extreme overcrowding and delays, and their dissatisfaction grew steadily. Moreover, the work-to-rule action caused congestion in the transport of daily necessities to the Tokyo metropolitan area, which led to rising prices, and passengers' dissatisfaction with the work-to-rule action grew day by day.
Course of the Incident
On March 13, 1973, while union members were carrying out the work-to-rule action, an upbound local train on the Takasaki Line, bound from Kagohara to Ueno, arrived 14 minutes late and entered platform 1 at Ageo Station at 7:20. This day was the day after the start of the second phase of the work-to-rule action, which had begun on February 1 of that year.
The upbound platform was already packed with an estimated 3,000 passengers, many of whom could not board the train. The train could not depart, and station staff at Ageo were restricting access at the ticket gates. In this situation, a following upbound local train from Maebashi to Ueno also entered platform 2. This train was likewise filled beyond capacity and could not depart. It was then decided that both trains would be terminated at Ōmiya, two stations ahead, and an announcement to that effect was made over the station loudspeakers. As a result, some passengers became enraged and crowded into the driver's cab to protest to the train driver. In addition, several people went down onto the tracks and threw stones, breaking the glass, and the passengers on the trains also began to turn into a mob. Seeing the menacing passengers and feeling threatened for their safety, the train drivers abandoned their duties and fled to the stationmaster's office at Ageo Station.
With no drivers, the trains naturally remained stopped, and the passengers' anger only intensified. Some 10,000 passengers inside the trains and on the station premises turned into a mob, stormed the stationmaster's office, and struck the stationmaster with hammers and other objects, injuring him (the stationmaster suffered injuries requiring five weeks of treatment). Other passengers smashed the window glass and headlights of the stopped trains and destroyed their operating equipment. They also began to destroy various facilities within the station. Furthermore, a rock was thrown at the limited express train Toki 2, which was stopped 300 meters short of Ageo Station and unable to enter, shattering its glass. Taking advantage of the chaos, 200,000 yen in cash disappeared from the station office. The station was occupied by the rioting passengers and became a lawless zone, and the disturbance spread to the area around the station. The Saitama Prefecture police dispatched 550 riot police officers to suppress the riot, but due to their inferior numbers, they had no choice but to stare down the crowd.
The riot spread to other stations on the same Takasaki Line, including Okegawa Station, Kitamoto Station, Konosu Station, and Kumagaya Station, and also spread to stations in Saitama Prefecture along the Tōhoku Main Line, worsening public order throughout the area. At Miyahara Station, passengers abducted a station employee and dragged him 4 kilometers to Ōmiya Station (a riot also broke out at Ōmiya Station). The area around Ageo Station was cut off for 11 hours, and even after operations resumed, normal service could not be restored, so replacement buses had to be mobilized. It was a scene of utter chaos.
About seven people were arrested in connection with this incident. They included people who stole money and goods taking advantage of the chaos, and a person who assaulted a reporter who had come to cover the event.
Aftermath
On the day after the incident, the National Railways and the police deployed riot police to maintain public order, but nothing happened, as if nothing had occurred. The labor union ended the work-to-rule action, citing safety concerns for its members. However, some unions resumed the work-to-rule action on the grounds that "the Ageo Station riot was instigated by the government side," and about a month later this led to the Tokyo metropolitan JNR riots.