The 24-hour strike caused 135 trains between Tokyo and Chiba prefecture to be cancelled, and JNR's management decided to fire more than 100 workers for staging the illegal walkout.
[9] Communications lines were cut, fires were set at 27 locations in seven prefectures, and heavy damage was done to Asakusabashi Station in Tokyo around 7 a.m. by masked figures wearing helmets and throwing firebombs.
[19] There was a government pledge that no one would be "Thrown out onto the street",[20] so unhired workers were classified as "needing to be employed" and were transferred to the JNR Settlement Corporation, where they could be assigned for up to three years.
[25] In 1987, the Central Labor Relations Commission in Tokyo ruled that the JR Group had to either rehire or compensate workers who were not hired when JNR was privatized.
Local labor relations commissions recognized discrimination in three prefectures, (Kanagawa, Tokyo, and Akita) and an order for redress was issued.
The Central Labour Relations Commission brokered a deal, and in 2005, Kokuro withdrew the 23 cases claiming anti-union discrimination against its members.
In the case bought by the Honshu carriers, presiding Judge Saburo Takase said that while JR companies were responsible for selecting personnel to start up their new entities, they were not obligated to compensate unhired JNR workers.
Presiding Judge Yasushige Hagio, ruling on the Hokkaido and Kyushu carriers' case, said that the JR Group companies were not responsible for personnel decisions following the JNR privatization, so he nullified the commission's order.
[31] In another case, of 283 plaintiffs in September 2005, the Tokyo District Court ruled that JNR had discriminated against union employees when recruiting for positions at the new JR companies.
Presiding judge Koichi Nanba ruled that the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency should pay ¥5 million to each of the plaintiffs.
"[32][33] On December 5, 2006, at the Tokyo District Court, more than 500 Kokuro members, the union itself, and relatives of workers who died since the privatization planned to launch a 30 million yen damages lawsuit over the refusal to rehire the workers, making a total of 540 plaintiffs suing the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency.
A Kokuro official stated: "This suit is for securing an option to solve problems through the court before the statute of limitations expires.
[35] In 2000, the ruling political bloc at the time (the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito, and the now-defunct New Conservative Party) suggested a compromise where the lawsuits would be dropped in return for urging the JR groups to rehire the workers in return for Kokuro acknowledging that JR had no responsibility for originally failing to employ them.
Kokuro had agreed to it but did not expel members who refused to accept it and had launched a separate lawsuit against the JNR Settlement Corporation in January 2002.
The ILO's view was that the dismissed workers "were not hired by the JR companies not because of discrimination against the labor unions but because their members had refused wide-area transfers to other regions.
The proposed settlement package included a ¥28 billion financial component, and a request for the JR companies to hire around 230 former JNR workers aged up to 55.
[43][44] 23 years after the original privatization, on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court settled the dispute between the workers and the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency.
[45] Pursuant to Paragraph 1 of the settlement, Kokuro and Kenkoro (Zendoro) dropped all its lawsuits, including unfair labor practice litigation not directly related to the firing of the 1,047 workers.
[46] Doro merged with Tetsuro, a company union which had split off from Kokuro decades ago, and formed JR-Soren (Japan Confederation of Railway Workers' Unions—JRU) and actively promoted the privatization of JNR.