Tsutsui W.M. A Companion to japanese histоry

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Honda Shigeru. ‘‘Yu

ki no

gyo

to sansho

teiki.’’ In Takayama Toshihiro, ed., Toshi to no

son o

musubu. Tokyo: Fumin Books, 1991.

Howell, David. ‘‘Hard Times in the Kanto

: Economic Change and V illage Life in Late

Tokugawa Japan.’’ Moder n Asian Studies 23:2 (1989): 349–71.

Ishige Naomichi. The History and Culture of Japanese Food. London: Kegan Paul, 2001.

Ishii Ryo

suke, ed. Tokugawa kinreiko

, 5. Tokyo: Ko

bunsha, 1959.

Japan in Figures 2003. Tokyo: Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and

Telecommunications, 2002.

Kawada Minoru. The Origin of Ethnography in Japan: Yanagita Kunio and His Times, trans.

Toshiko Kishida-Ellis. London: Kegan Paul, 1993.

Kawamura Yoshio. ‘‘Toshi kakudai to no

gyo

no imi.’’ In Takayama Toshihiro, ed., Toshi to

son o musubu. Tokyo: Fumin Books, 1991.

King, Franklin. Farmers of For ty Centuries; or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and

Japan, ed. J. P. Bruce. Erasmus, Penn.: Organic Gardening Press, 1927.

Kornhauser, David. ‘‘Coefficients of Urban Intensification for Japanese Cities.’’ In Frank

J. Costa et al., eds., Urbanization in Asia: Spatial Dimensions of Policy Issues. Honolulu:

University of Hawai i Press, 1989.

Kumagai Hiroshi. ‘‘Concept of ‘Sustainable and Regional Agriculture’ in Japan.’’ In Hiroshi

Sasaki et al., eds., Geographical Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Systems: Proceedings of the

Tsukuba International Conference on the Sustainability of Rural Systems. Tokyo: Kaisei

Publications, 1996.

Kuriki Fumio. ‘‘Kyo

yasai no rekishi to shokuseikatsu.’’ In Kyo

yasai Kenkyu

kai, ed., Kyo

yasai no

seisan, ryu

tsu

, kyo

hi to chiiki seikatsu seika ni kan suru kenkyu

. Kyoto: Kyoto Sangyo

Daigaku

Kokudo Riyo

Kaihatsu Kenkyu

jo, 1998.

Latz, Gil. Agricultural Development in Japan: The Land Improvement District in Concept and

Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Geography Research Paper no. 225, 1989.

Latz, Gil. ‘‘The Persistence of Agriculture in Urban Japan: An Analysis of the Tokyo Metro-

politan Area.’’ In Norton Ginsburg et al., eds., The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transi-

tion in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai

i Press, 1991.

Masayoshi Koshiro. ‘‘The Use of Organic and Chemical Fertilizers in Japan.’’ Food and

Fertilizer Technology Extension Bulletin 312 (1990): 4–15.

Miyata Noboru, ‘‘Toshi to minzoku bunka.’’ In Miyata Noboru et al., eds., Nihon minzoku

bunka taikei, 11, Toshi to inaka. Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1985.

Moore, Richard. Japanese Agriculture: Patterns of Rural Development. Boulder, Colo.: West-

view Press, 1990.

Mormont, Marc. ‘‘Who is Rural? or, How to be Rural: Towards a Sociology of the Rural.’’ In

Terry Marsden et al., eds., Rural Restructuring: Global Processes and Their Responses.

London: David Fulton, 1990.

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. ‘‘The Invention and Reinvention of ‘Japanese Culture’.’’ Journal of

Asian Studies 54:3 (1995): 759–80.

Morse, Ronald. Yanagita Kunio and the Folklore Movement: The Search for Japan’s National

Character and Distinctiveness. New York: Garland, 1990.

Mulgan, Aurelia George. The Politics of Agriculture in Japan. London: Routledge, 2000.

Nakai Nobuhiko. ‘‘Commercial Change and Urban Growth in Early Modern Japan,’’ trans.

James McClain. In John Whitney Hall, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 4, Early

Modern Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1993.

Rath, Eric. ‘‘New Meanings for Old Vegetables in Kyoto.’’ In Theodore and Victoria Bestor,

eds., Cuisine, Consumption, and Culture: Food in Contemporary Japan. Berkeley: University

of California Press, forthcoming.

490 ERIC C. RATH

Reischauer, Edwin, and Craig, Albert. Japan: Tradition and Transformation, rev. edn. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

Robertson, Jennifer. ‘‘Japanese Farm Manuals: A Literature of Discovery.’’ Peasant Studies

11:3 (1984): 169–94.

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Tsuneo. ‘‘Tokugawa Villages and Agriculture.’’ In Nakane Chie and O

ishi Shinzaburo

eds., Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan, trans. Conrad

Totman. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1990.

Smethurst, Richard. A Social Basis for Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Commu-

nity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Smith, Thomas C. The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University

Press, 1959.

Smith, Thomas C. Nakahara: Family Farming and Population in a Japanese Village, 1770–

1830. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1977.

Sorensen, Andre. The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-

First Century. London: Routledge, 2002.

Sugiyama Tadayoshi. Edo jidai no yasai no saibai to riyo

. Tokyo: Ho

yashi, 1998.

Tsukamoto Manabu. Tokai to inaka. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1991.

Waswo, Ann. ‘‘The Transformation of Rural Society, 1900–1950.’’ In Peter Duus, ed., The

Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1988.

Waswo, Ann. ‘‘In Search of Equity: Japanese Tenant Unions in the 1920s.’’ In Ann Waswo and

Nishida Yoshiaki, eds., Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-Century Japan. London:

Routledge, 2003.

FURTHER READING

For medieval villages, see Hitomi Tonomura’s Community and Commerce in Late

Medieval Japan: The Corporate Villages of Tokuchin-ho (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford

University Press, 1992), and for medieval agriculture, see Kristina Troost’s ‘‘Peasants,

Elites, and Villages in the Fourteenth Century,’’ in Jeffrey Mass, ed., The Origins of

Japan’s Medieval World (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997). Thomas

Smith’s The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University

Press, 1959) remains a classic introduction to farming and farm families in the early

modern period. Herman Ooms’s Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power,

Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) illuminates the legal and status

consciousness of peasants.

There has been considerable scholarship in English on peasant uprisings in the early

modern period; recent works include Herbert Bix’s Peasant Protest in Japan, 1590–

1884 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); William Kelly’s Deference and

Defiance in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1985); Stephen Vlastos’s Peasant Protests and Uprisings in Tokugawa Japan (Berke-

ley: University of California Press, 1986); Anne Walthall’s Social Protest and Popular

Culture in Eighteenth-Century Japan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986);

and James W. White’s Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). For narratives of a few rebellions from

the peasants’ perspect ive, see Anne Walthall’s Peasant Uprisings in Japan: A Critical

Anthology of Peasant Histories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

On conflicts between tenants and landowners in the modern period see Richard

Smethurst’s Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan 1870–1940

RURAL JAPAN AND AGRICULTURE 491

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) and Ann Waswo’s Japanese Landlords:

The Decline of a Rural Elite (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). For

details about the hardship of life in the prewar countryside, see Mikiso Hane’s

Peasants, Rebels, Wom en, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan (Lanham,

Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) and Nagatsuka Takashi’s 1910 novel The Soil,

trans. Ann Waswo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). For a few happier

recollections of country life see Jun ichi Saga, Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-

Portrait of Small-Town Japan, trans. Garry Evans (New York: Ko

dansha Inter-

national, 1987).

Richard Moore’s Japanese Agriculture: Patterns of Ru ral Development (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview Press, 1990) is essential reading for understanding rural develop-

ment in the twentieth century, as is Penelope Francks’s volume Technology and

Agricultural Development in Pre-war Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1984). Aurelia George Mulgan’s extensive study The Politics of Agriculture in

Japan (London: Routledge, 2000) analyzes the political fortunes of Japanese farmers

in the postwar period.

492 ERIC C. RATH

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Business and Labor

Charles Weathers

The non-technical labor relations literature on Japan is dominated by three themes:

historical evolution, inter pretation of labor–management relations, and the role of

the firm. The main historical issue concerns the evolution of a cooperative, enterprise-

based employment system. Tension persisted for decades between manu al workers

seeking respect and factory managers seeking to inculcate tight workplace discipline,

usually with greater moral or patriotic exhortation than provision of tangib le benefits.

A complex mix of policies, practices, and demands ultimately evolved after 1950 into

a more or less mutuall y desirable accommodation in which the ‘‘core’’ blue collar

workers were incorporated into enterprises as full members, though a stiff price was

paid in the marginalization of laborers, small-firm workers, and women. Easily the

dominant figure is Andrew Gordon whose three books, assorted articles, and trans-

lated works define the historical industrial relations field.

The historical theme does not generate great controversy (at least in the English

literature), but the interpretation of Japan’s postwar (post-1945) or contemporary

labor–management relations system is strongly contested. Clearly, Japan’s labor and

employment practices have contributed greatly to the country’s impressive postwar

economic performance, but there is fierce disagreement about whether workers and

the general population have benefited proportionately. This debate is closely tied to

the issue of whether Japanese unions are independent of management. Advocates of

Japanese labor–management relations believe that unions have served worker inter-

ests and responded to their desires by cooperating pragmatically in efforts to raise

productivity, thereby raising living standards and bolstering job security. Critics

believe that cooperation was nearly unconditional, leading to neglect of work condi-

tions and the interests of marginal workers. The leading English-language critic is,

again, Gordon, whi le a leading advocate is the prolific Ronald Dore.

Among Japan-

ese scholars, advocates are well represented by the contributors to Shirai Taishiro’s

1983 edited volume and critics by Kumazawa Makoto.

The third theme regard s the nature of work, particularly the central role of the firm

(and work) in society as well as the economy. The employment/industrial relations

system is strongly enterprise-centered, as famously manifested in the ‘‘three treas-

ures’’ of lifetime (more accurately, long-term) employment, strong seniority weight-

ing in wages and promotions (the nenko

system), and enterprise unions, which

A Companion to Japanese History

Edited by William M. Tsutsui

include the memb ers of only one firm. Although the distinctiveness of the system’s

features (notably lifetime employment) is frequently exaggerated, Japan boasts prob-

ably the closest labor–management cooperation achieved in any industrial democracy.

An emergent theme, so far covered only sketchily in English, regards major changes

in employment practice that have occurred since the collapse of the ‘‘bubble econ-

omy’’ around 1991. Prolonged economic stagnation has created strong pressure to

make labor more flexible and to reduce costs, as well as to better incorporate wome n

into the workforce. Needless to say, the efforts of firms to reduce commitments to

employees (or to extend them to fewer employees) has entailed great change in

employment practices and altered the meaning of work in people’s lives. One major

subfield, insp ired by Japan’s unusually pronounced and persistent gendered division

of labor, has been a large volume of work on women workers.

Research on changing

employment practices, non-regula r empl oyees, a nd female workers should become

increasingly inter meshed in future as equal opportunity (along with family-friendly)

policy-making and cost-cutting management strategies advance in uneasy tandem.

Because Japanese employment practices differ significantly from Western practices,

because work occupies a central role in people’s lives and identities, and (more

arguably) because industrial relations tend to be ‘‘informal,’’ participant-observer

and ethnographic research is central to the labor research agenda.

Much of the best

research on Japan has sought to demystify or demytho logize employment practices

while attack ing the tendency (all too conveniently) to attribute cooperation and other

behavior to Japanese culture.

Some characteristics of Japan’s postwar industrial relations system render it difficult

to understand. First, some institutions function quite differently from fo reign coun-

terparts even when they are not inherently complex – the classic example is the

enterprise union. Second, negotiations and decision-making often lack transparency.

The ascent of cooperative unionism has entailed a decline in collective bargaining in

favor of informal, secretive labor–management discussion at the enterprise level. The

unions’ failure to conduct assertive collective bargaining has elevated the importance

of formal policy-making, in which representatives of unions, business, and the gov-

ernment bureaucracy participate. Though not necessarily secretive, the policy-making

processes and outcomes hardly lend themselves to easy interpretation. Finally, em-

ployment practices are predominantly informally institutionalized, that is, they are

not strongly or clearly embedded in laws. This is an important source of economic

flexibility, but worsening job and income insecurity since around 1991 has strength-

ened the case for establishing more explicit rules and a stronger social safety net.

The historical evolution of the employment system can be summarized as follows.

The precursors of modern employment practices emerg ed as early as the 1870s, and

were first established on a significant scale in the 1920s. Employment practices were

modified and in many important respects reinforced by governmental wartime labor

policies in the wartime era (1930s–45). They assumed their contemporary form in

the 1950s and 1960s (high growth era), and thereafter reached maturation while

contributing importantly to Japan’s impressive economic perfor mance in the 1970s

and 1980s (years of slow or, more optimistically, steady growth). Buoyed by powerful

export industries, the employment system was remarkably stable through the early

1990s, but the combination of stagnant growth, technological advances, and inten-

sifying foreign competition in strategic industries such as electronics have reduced the

494 CHARLES WEATHERS

benefits, including strong job and income security, once seemingly assured by the

nation’s manufa cturing prowess, impressive though it still is. Consequently, employ-

ment practices have undergone major changes.

The Labor Force

Japan was heavily urbanized by the 1700s, and many of the city residents became

wage workers, including numerous servants and day laborers, and a few production

workers. Some scholars believe that the Tokugawa era bequeathed a large supply of

skilled labor to Meiji Japan. Others see little continuity, but the technology gap

between Japan and the West in the latter half of the nineteenth century was small

enough that artisans could be readily retrained in modern production practices. The

agricultural sector served as an important source of labor for industry from the 1880s

to the 1960s, and to some extent as an absorber of surplus workers as well when

economic activity slowed (family businesses long served a similar function). The

proportion of working pers ons employed in agriculture fell from 81 percent in

1872 to 42 percent in 1936. After rising in the difficult post-1945 era, it plunged

rapidly from around 40 percent in 1955 to 10 percent in 1980. In the Meiji era,

primogeniture laws and smallish plots meant that a steady stream of men unable to

support themselves in farming moved to cities, often becoming industrial workers.

Yet until the early 1930s, a majority of factory workers were female. From the late

nineteenth century tens of thousands of women from impoverished, mostly peasant,

families spent several years working in textile mills. Many, perhaps most, were br utally

exploited.

The early industrial workforce was concentrated in light industry, which

employed 94 percent of the approximat ely 450,000 factory workers in 1900, but the

leading role in industrial relations formation was played by large firms, many of them

government-operated. These emerged quickly in Meiji Japan, notably in ‘‘modern’’

industries such as machinery, shipbuilding, mining, and armaments. Large firms

became the primary sites of skill formation and (reflecting the weakness of the

traditional guilds) the development of nascent worker consciousness as well.

Political oppression and hostility from social elites, along with the early establish-

ment of large firms (that is, strong employers), created a difficult environment for

Meiji era labor. Blue collar workers were disrespected, if not despised, both within

factories and in general society throughout the pre-1945 era. The large status

differences separating factory workers (and the rest of the underclass) from super-

visors and white collar workers long poisoned labor relations, and implicitly encour-

aged the exploitation of marginal workers, particularly unskilled laborers, mine

workers, and female factory operators. Although treatment improved over time,

poverty and dangerous working conditions remained the norm for factory workers

and labore rs. In retrospect, the oppression and discrimination seem paradoxical since

many workers fervently sought self-improvement in terms of occupation, education,

and social status. Early labor leaders and workers’ associations or unions emphasized

worker dignity while campaigning for social respect, and advocated moderation and

non-confrontation in dealing with management. Many female textile workers

were lured into the mills in part through promises (mostly false) of educational

opportunity.

BUSINESS AND LABOR 495

Pre-1945 Labor–Management Relations

Although wid espread poverty and rapid population growth ensured an abundant

supply of cheap unskilled labor, employe rs were long vexed about training and

retaining skilled workers. The high mobility of Meiji era workers, heirs to the

Tokugawa tradition of independent artisans, helped to disseminate skills throughout

the country, but frustrated the efforts of individual managers to hold down turnover

and impose modern factory discipline. Pioneering efforts, from as early as the early

1870s, focused larg ely on developing wage and promotion systems that would reward

ability and create incentives for valuable workers to stay with employers. Regular

increases of the day wage were ‘‘the most distinctive’’ personnel innovation of

nineteenth-century Japanese managers, and a precursor of postwar seniority pay

systems.

During the early twentieth century, companies began offering a variety of retire-

ment or severance pay packages, incentive bo nuses, and welfare programs. Many

firms, notably government-run factories and shipyards, instituted training programs.

Nevertheless, retention rates remained very low during the early 1900s, largely

because numerous workers prior to the 1910s found job-switching an effective

means of developing skills and raising pay. Others wished to remain independent,

or to found their own firms. Firms steadily began to treat white collar workers as firm

members, and sometimes extende d similar treatment to factory supervisors as well,

but production workers invariably received inferior benefits or were excluded al-

together. Other common causes of worker resentment included output pay, favorit-

ism and arbitrary behavior by supervisors, and sudden curtailments of benefits when

economic conditions soured. Supervision presented another challenge. Until around

1900, managers relied heavily on oyakata (independent labor bosses), a Tokugawa

legacy, not only to supervise, but often even to train, hire, and pay production

workers. By the early years of the century, most large firms, aided by the steady

mechanization of production, had established direct supervision of workers. How-

ever, the quality of shop-floor supervision tended to be poor until the 1950s, leaving

managers heavily dependent on skilled workers.

A significant labor movement emerged in the late 1890s, but Meiji era unions and

mutual aid societies consistently folded in short order because of lack of worker

solidarity and government pressure. The Public Order and Police Law of 1900

proscribed strikes, and activists risked imprisonment along with dismissal. In contrast

to the West, artisans had little impact on Japan’s labor movement, partly because

Tokugawa era industries were undermined by modernization. Workers in large fac-

tories became the main players in forging new forms of worker organization, nego-

tiation, and protest, and the earliest worker protests or actions were primarily non-

union. Gordon emphasizes that prewar workers displayed greater activism and

exerted more influence on labor policies than previously believe d.

They sometimes

forced managers, for instance, to raise pay or curtail discriminatory practices.

Some important general patterns from the dawn of Japan’s labor movement have

persisted to the present. Workers have been predominantly organized within work-

places, a situation that has undermined efforts to coordinate union activities, or to

unify the union movement. Workers and unions have usually emphasized protection

496 CHARLES WEATHERS

of jobs within fir ms (or their affiliates), and rarely resisted the introduction of new

technology. Foremen and skilled workers tended to form the core of prewar labor

organizations, while managers, well aware of their crucial leadership role, worked to

integrate them into company hierarchies. The influence of this template – labor

organization centered on workplaces, focused on job protection, and guided by

supervisors – remains quite strong, alth ough maj or postw ar unions generally evolved

from workplace-centered to enterprise-centered entities.

By the 1910s, rising education levels had begun to stimulate worker consciousness;

that, along with better labor organization and the demand for labor generated by

rapid industr ial growth, strengthened protest capabilities. In addition, government

pressure eased somewhat. In this slightly more favorable environment appeared

Japan’s first durable major union, the Friendly Society (Yu

aikai). It was renamed

the General Federation of Labor (So

mei) in 1921. Labor grew increasingly militant

in the late 1910s as a result of persistent discrimination, economic recession, and

heady international influences, notably the Russian Revolution. Consequently, the

1918–21 per iod witnessed a wave of major strikes. However, these disputes marked

the peak of labor power, as a prolonged economic slump brought drastic cutbacks in

employment in heavy industry.

Labor was also weakened by ideological factionalism. So

mei’s left wing exited

the federation in 1925, and the union movement has remained divided between right

(cooperative) and left wings ever since. In addition, ultra-cooperative unionists

advocating the fusion of labor and management interests appeared in the early

1920s. Simplistically schematized, the cooperative wing has been divided between

factions preferring close cooperation with, or independence from, managers, while

the left has been similarly divided between moderate (often socialist-oriented) and

more radical (left socialist and/or communist-influenced) factions. In many cases, a

three-sided schematization of closely cooperative, moderate, and radical is also ap-

propriate.

The labor unrest in the late 1910s and early 1920s led government and business

to revise their labor policy approaches. The government softened its labor stance

somewhat, and consented to join the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Some national bureaucrats had for years feared the effects of harsh management

practices on the working population, and on political order.

Labor bureauc rats

sought to establish progressive policies and regulations, notably the 1912 Factory

Law, which protected women and children in factories, although the powerful

business community diluted the law and delayed its implementation. Some liberal

national bureaucrats sought in the 1920s to establish stronger labor rights, but

an ambitious Home Ministry bill to recognize labor unions met defeat in the Diet

in 1931.

Large-firm managers began to respond to worker demands for equality, partly by

intensifying the use of paternalism, and by (slightly) better grounding it in benefits

such as job and wage protection. Recent historians have attacked claims that these

represented altruistic practices, viewing them more as variations of corporate welfare

policies. Certainly, the benefits hardly matched the rhetoric. Probably more effective

were factory councils, which provided workers with a voice but minimal influence.

Despite their limitations, factory councils proved useful in displacing unions. In

1931, the organization rate reached its prewar peak of 7.9 percent, though in reality

BUSINESS AND LABOR 497

organized labor was already in decline, with employers having virtually eliminated

unions and activists from the strategic modern industries.

The 1920s slump helped shift management attention from turnover to rational-

ization. Large (especially government-owned) firms enthusiastically applied scientific

management and other American-style management practices, notably by linking

wages to productivity, though the gains from such efforts were limited until the

1950s.

The slide into war after 1930 brought a massive military build-up and

consequent rapid growth of the industrial workforce, and ushered in a highly nation-

alistic phas e in industrial relations. From the late 1930s, all unions, and eventually

business associations as well, were forced to dissolve themselves into the corporatist

Greater Japan Industrial Patriotic Association (Sanpo

). The government also man-

dated livelihood (that is, based on family need) wage systems and other measur es

intended to stabilize workforces during the war. These policies were general ly unsuc-

cessful. However, many business or governmental initiatives – notably scientific

management and livelihood-based wage systems – which had done little to instill

harmony or raise productivity before 1945 served as precursors of the vastly more

successful practices of the postwar era. Even the fascistic and notoriously ineffective

Sanpo

promoted egalitarian consciou sness and organizational practices; these are

believed to have strongly encouraged the postwar emergence of enterprise unionism.

The Early Postwar Era

The United States played contradictory roles in shaping postwar labor practices.

During the early phase of the occupation, American officials forced the government

to enact progre ssive labor laws and include strong labor rights in the constitution,

and encouraged workers to organize unions. As the policy-making prio rity shifted

from democratization to economic revival, however, they began helping managers

and the government to roll back union influence. Union membership exploded from

zero at war’s end to nearly five million by December 1946. The enterprise union

quickly became the predominant form of labor organization in Japan. This reflected,

in addition to the historic tendency to form workplace-based units, the influence of

the governme nt’s wartime labor policies and desperate postwar econo mic conditions

that left employees little chance of finding work in other companies. The rise of

enterprise unions also reflected a desire to expunge hated status differentials, and

indeed they contributed enormously to democratization and, in the longer term,

labor–management cooperation by promoting egalitarianism, albeit primarily within

firms and among men. There were limits to such change, of course. Despite consid-

erable social leveling and a rapid improvement of educat ional and other opportun-

ities, status consciou sness remained strong.

Another uncertain legacy was the role

played by white collar workers, who generally led enterprise unions but reclaimed

some of their earlier prerogatives as the rollback of union influence gathered force in

the late 1940s. Blue collar workers, though aware of such potential dangers, had

often judged that the benefits of more inclusive unionism outweighed the risks. For

better or worse, one result was that the typical Japanese union is not just an enterprise

union but a combination (kongo

) union combining all workers (especially blue and

white collar) in a firm.

498 CHARLES WEATHERS

The first postwar labor protests were conducted largely by Korea ns and Chinese

(many essentially slave laborers) whose example encouraged Japanese workers to

become more aggressive. Unions soon played important roles in preventing layoffs.

Workers in some firms seized control of prod uction from managers in production

control strikes; these are now widely viewed as having been driven largely by em-

ployee distrust of management rather than revolutionary Marxist consciousness. In

1946, cooperative labor leaders re-established So

mei, and left-wing leaders

founded the Japan Council of Industrial Labor Unions (Sanbetsu), reconstituting

the prewar left/right division. Sanbetsu initially boasted twice the membership of

mei and held the labor leadership initiative. Public sector unions were major

forces in Sanbetsu (despite significant weakening an d steady privatization, these same

unions still anchor labor’s left wing). Sanbetsu led prep arations for a politically

oriented general strike on February 1, 1947, but American authorities forced a last

moment cancellation, dealing a severe blow to the labor left.

Fearing that labor activists were undermining economic recovery, American offi-

cials began encouraging government and employer efforts to combat left-wing

unions. Consequently, the gover nment rescinded the right to strike for public sector

workers in July 1948 and revised the Trade Union Law in 1949, clearing the way for

companies to reject no-dismissal clauses and rationalize workforces. The To

shiba

strike (1949) served as a crucial test showdown. The company encouraged the

emergence of a cooperative ‘‘second union,’’ undermining the first union. Managers

were then able to revise the labor contract and rationalize the workforce throug h

large-scale dismissals. In addition, the gover nment conducted the Red Purge (a purge

of communist or allegedly communist labor leaders) in 1950. Probably the American

policy most damaging to organized labor was the 1949 Dodge Line, a set of harsh

anti-inflationary policies. In 1948, hardline business leaders founded the employers’

association Nikkeiren to reassert strong management authority. The federation played

an important role in assisting firms in rolling back union prerogatives in 1949–51.

Nikkeiren’s influence on labor affairs declined thereafter, though it continues to

coordinate policy-making for employers.

The union organization rate peaked at 55.8 percent in 1949, then fell nearly 10

points in a year, while Sanbetsu collapsed. A more inclusive federation, So

hyo

, was

established in 1950. Unfortunately, unity was short-lived as the cold war and ideo-

logical tensions soon induced So

hyo

to turn leftward. Cooperative unions promptly

began seceding, eventually forming the rival federation Do

mei in 1964.

Shaping Industrial Relations in the High Growth Era

The 1950s were a period of political tension, but workplaces calmed as managers and

cooperative labor leaders steadily strengthened their authority and established the

foundations of the contemporary employment system. Workers generally consented

to a close-cooperation-based system. One reason was that most preferred cooperation

with employers, especially those hired from the countryside where the tradition of

respect for authority remained strong. In addition, employers greatly improved their

personnel and labor management practices (as outlined below), responding to

the blue collar workers’ demands for equal status and security as well as raising

BUSINESS AND LABOR 499