Japan 3: Japanese workers face the 'unification' threat
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The third article of the series describes the employers' latest moves to stifle militant trade unionism, and the workers' fightback.
THE phenomenal growth rates of the Japanese economy of the years from 1955 to 1970 of over 10% in real terms (easily the highest in the world), come to an abrupt end with the oil crisis of 1973. Average annual growth rate dropped to 4%.
The Japanese economy began to be more affected by the general conditions of crisis in the world capitalist economy. It prompted the employers to begin new drives to increase productivity and efficiency.
Despite the already high levels of exploitation, they were very successful. Many productive industries substantially reduced the labour force while at the same time substantially increasing output. Car manufacture is an example.
This was partly due to new technology but also to a sharp increase in the rate of exploitation of the workforce.
Hold
The Japanese employers managed despite growing redundancies and closures (particularly in the latter part of the 1970s), to retain their hold over the trade union movement. Average wage increases in the 1970s were less than 2%.
Militancy was mostly in the public sector where the Sohyo class struggle line had its strongest effect. An example was the 1975 strike on the Japanese National Railway (JNR) which opposed a management productivity drive and demanded the right to strike.
Another phenomenon in the 1970s was the beginnings of a fight back by progressive unions in a number of industries. Progressive unions split by the employers refused to fade away as they had in the 1960s and began to fight back.
This produced an important tactic of Japanese militants which is to support the growth of such unions against the yellow unions controlled by the employers.
Plant unions
It should be explained that, incredibly, there are 34,163 unions (covering 12 million organised workers) in Japan. This amazing figure results from the individual enterprise or individual plant unions which are unique to Japan.
In most cases a union comprises both manual and clerical workers. Such enterprise unions cover 93% of organised workers.
In each enterprise or plant, from, for example, a car company with tens of thousands of workers to a small factory with 50 workers, the union is entirely autonomous and financially self-administered and self supporting.
From this, of course, the individual enterprise unions come together to form Federations based on the particular sector of industry and political colour of the union.
Collective bargaining rights are held with the individual enterprise unions. The various Federations will set guidelines, dates and targets — such as the Shunto — but the negotiating is carried out by the union in the plant or workplace.
This structure has facilitated another significant and progressive development with the Japanese trade unions — the development of small (mostly Sohyo) unions in small and medium enterprises. Management in such workplaces were not so organised and sophisticated and new unions could make headway.
Occupied
I was able to visit an occupied plant in Yokohama (an industrial city in the Tokyo region) of Toshiba Ampex — a plant which manufactured video equipment — and which is an example of this process even in a small plant of a multi-national.
The plant had been occupied since it was closed in October last year.
[Photograph. Caption: Toshiba Ampex — workers have occupied to stop closure]
At the time of closure the 400 workers were divided between a yellow union and an independent Sohyo union — not a usual situation in Japan. The yellow union accepted the closure meakly but the Sohyo union with its 100 members occupied and began a courageous fight against the closure.
Another example I was able to visit is the occupation and work-in at Tanaka Machinery in south Osaka.
(Osaka is the second city of Japan, 300 miles south-east of Tokyo. South Osaka is an industrial area which is an important centre of militancy for the progressive unions in Japan).
This is a remarkable work-in which has continued for five years since the plant was occupied in 1978.
Closure
The plant is maintained and defended and 100 skilled workers manufacture and market industrial equipment.
The closure itself was a part of the anti-union drive of the employers.
During the 1970s the factory had been the main power base of progressive trade unionism in the south Osaka region, through the union in the factory affiliated to Sohyo.
For years the employers used every method against them including gangsters.
Eventually they created a false bankruptcy. The Mitsubishi bank withdrew finance and Nippon Steel — the factory's main customer — withdrew its orders. The Company declared liquidation and the workers took over.
(Now the whole operation is run by the works committee from the union office and potential customers are interviewed under portraits of Lenin and Mao).
Whilst the work-in carries all the problems of worker cooperatives, it represents an important act of defiance against the tactics of the employers. Even more it is a beacon and organiser of independent progressive trade unionism.
(For example the 2,000 strong 1979 annual conference of Rodo Joho was held inside the machine shed of the occupied Tanaka machinery works. Rodo Joho is the most important left grouping within the progressive trade union movement in Japan).
The struggle of militant trade union activists in south Osaka, given the difficult conditions of Japan, are very impressive.
[Photograph. Caption: Osaka: "Once a union is established, militants from the area hold demonstrations outside the factory every lunch time demanding recognition..."]
They work to establish unions in the small and medium sized non-aligned factories where the employers are less sophisticated and organised.
Once a union is established, militants from the area, including Tanaka Machinery, hold demonstrations outside the factory every lunch time, demanding recognition.
All this however takes place within a rightward moving political situation and a major part of the response of Japanese capital to the economic crisis is a move — through the right wing and yellow unions — to deal a very serious blow to progressive trade unionism in Japan.
This is a policy, promoted by the right wing, on behalf of the employers, of "unification of the Federations" — merging all trade union federations in Japan into one Federation covering the whole trade union movement.
The left is correctly mounting a major campaign against this move, since the effect of it would be to virtually eliminate Sohyo as the only major progressive trade union federation in Japan.
Tactic
The moves are very advanced. The tactic of the right wing is to begin by unifying the unions in the private export-based industries and to move on as quickly as possible to cover the public sector as well.
It would not just create one huge trade union federation, but one which was entirely dominated by the overall class collaborationist strategic line of the Domei and IMF-JC unions.
Generally speaking, of course, trade union unity is a very good thing. In Britain the fragmentation of the unions in some industries is a major problem.
But in the Japanese context the success of these moves would be a major blow to trade unionism with an independent class struggle line.
The most important proponents of this "unification" of course are precisely the IMF-JC unions, who echo the policy of the most powerful sections of employers: they include the reactionary 600,000 member Federation of Auto Workers Unions; the Federation of Electrical Workers Unions; the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions; and the Federation of Iron and Steel Workers Unions (Tekko Roren).
Unions
The strategic importance of these unions to the Japanese economy should be noted.
They speak directly for Japanese big capital, and Nakamura Takuhiko, chairman of Tekko Roren outlined the objectives of the 'unification' as follows:
1] eliminating Marxist influence and the concept of class struggle from the Japanese Socialist Party [which is allied with Sohyo] and turning the party into the Japanese counterpart of the West German Social Democratic Party;
2] promotion of nuclear power generation to save the nation's energy crisis.
3] abandonment of the struggle against rationalisation and the "Industrial structural transformation" programme. [The government's plan to move industries overseas].
4] revamping the Japanese National Railways and other unprofitable public corporations through administrative reforms [i.e. closures and redundancies].
[Information taken from AMPO, Japan Asia Quarterly Review]
This is more significant since Tekko Roren is a right wing union within Sohyo.
Disastrously the top leaders of Sohyo argue in favour of the "unification", although some Japanese Communist Party (JCP) influenced unions within it argue strongly against and say they will not join the "unification" if it goes ahead with Sohyo in it.
This drive for even more direct control over the Japanese trade union movement is but one aspect of the right wing trajectory of the Japanese political situation under the pressure of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has held power for 28 consecutive years.
The LDP, in close alliance with the multinationals and every level of Japanese bourgeois society pursues its political objectives with equal vigour.
The new Nakasone cabinet is setting out to build Japan into a more independent imperialist country in direct contradiction to the Japanese constitution, which outlaws any military force.
Japan already has the seventh largest military force in the world.
Two boxed panels were printed with the article.
Japan's population is 120 million. The total workforce is 55 million of which 38 million are employees (i.e. excluding self-employed, etc). Of these, 13 million are women. The highest organisation rates exist in gas, water, electricity and public services, followed by transportation, communication, finance and insurance.
The organisation rate in mining and manufacturing is nearly 40%. In contrast the lowest organisation rate is in wholesaling, retailing, construction, agriculture, forestry, fishing and service industries such as hotels. Generally speaking, smaller enterprises are less organised.
The Liberal Democratic Party has 300 Diet seats. The Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) is the largest opposition party with 100 Diet seats resulting from ten million votes and is therefore not a serious contender for power in the current situation. The Democratic Socialist Party, affiliated to Domei — an extreme right wing split from the JSP has 35 seats. The JCP, with 400,000 members, gets four million votes and has 30 seats. The Komei Party (Buddhist-based on "clean government") has 45 seats.